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Hunger #3
Lilith's Dream
An ancient vampire, beautiful beyond words, a vulnerable young man drawn to her by a power beyond his understanding, two desperate parents searching across the world for the son they love -- these are the riveting, unexpected elements of Whitley Strieber's extraordinary new novel. Lilith, the ages-old mother of the dying race of vampires, has been forced to come out of her cave deep in the Egyptian desert in search of food -- human blood. But she knows nothing about the modern world. She can't drive a car, rent a room, turn on a TV. She struggles to New York, penniless, vulnerable, and starving, protected only by her beauty and her power to capture men with desire...especially certain very special men. The instant she sees young Ian Ward, she knows that he is part vampire himself. She knows that Ian, if he ever tastes human blood, will belong to her forever. And she needs him desperately, to help her survive and live in this harsh new world of jets and credit cards and guns. She sets out on a campaign of seduction -- as sensuous as it is terrifying -- to touch human blood to Ian's lips, which will then become for him a drug a thousand times more addictive than heroin. Ian's father, Paul Ward, part vampire turned expert and obsessive hunter of vampires, knows that if the blood transforms Ian, Paul will have to kill his own son. The titanic conflict between father and son and seductress, hunter and hunted and huntress, comes to its surprise conclusion in the secret chambers beneath the great pyramids, where the hidden truths of all human history are stored. From its beginning in the dark back alleys of Cairo to its totally unexpected ending, Lilith's Dream draws the reader down seductive new paths of discovery, into places where no novel has ever before. With Lilith's Dream Whitley Strieber has created a vampire so original and a story so newthat he has virtually invented a new genre.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2002
8 people are currently reading
567 people want to read
About the author
Whitley Strieber
152 books1,252 followersAmerican writer best known for his novels The Wolfen,The Hunger and Warday and for Communion, a non-fiction description of his experiences with apparent alien contact. He has recently made significant advances in understanding this phenomenon, and has published his new discoveries in Solving the Communion Enigma.
Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the blockbuster film about sudden climate change, The Day After Tomorrow.
His book The Afterlife Revolution written with his deceased wife Anne, is a record of what is considered to be one of the most powerful instances of afterlife communication ever recorded.
Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the blockbuster film about sudden climate change, The Day After Tomorrow.
His book The Afterlife Revolution written with his deceased wife Anne, is a record of what is considered to be one of the most powerful instances of afterlife communication ever recorded.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
February 22, 2008
You could never play this movie the way the book is written - the viewing public has seen too much of this sort of cheap-shot denouement in the likes of Men in Black and Bobby Ewing’s series-long shower. You’d have to start the movie WITH the denouement. To fully sate this in a modern cinema-going audience jaded by year after year of blockbuster narrative, the movie of LILITH’S DREAM would have to rip its own narrative balls out in this first scene in that legendary Hall of Mirrors.
Lilith’s Dream Plays Like a Straight Vampire Book
A simple sequel from the original HUNGER and its follow-up THE LAST VAMPIRE, this is nearly the book I’ve always wanted Strieber to tell. The book about the past. The book about the technology. The book about the history of the vampires and their human Keepers. I have always wanted Strieber to take us back in time to a place where the vampires were first born, first arrived, first started manipulating the human gene line. I wanted to be romanced by the sexual regalia of a vampire’s proximity. I wanted to fall in love with some alien creature the way cavemen of that long-ago meeting must have felt when faced with such beauty-exuding beasts that tore to the very soul of humanity. Supernatural creatures we would willingly give our lives to. Sacrifice our children. Release our own blood for them.
Such was the ancient power of the vampire.
When I wrote the short story RED, RED WINE with Alex Severin, I knew the depiction of our vampires with retractable ratchet-jointed bones and a secondary vagina ringed with hypodermic needles for feeding on cocks was spot on. And this book affirms my belief in that dreamlike part of the vampire legend.
These creatures can do super human things that are BEYOND the realm of human understanding. They are pure narrative. The are spell-binding horror creatures that look like your darkest fantasies. They are pure allure. They are the sound of blood rushing through a human heart, powered by a heart bathing in aeons of vampire love juice.
Strieber is a true sensualist. I did wonder about him when I was reading THE LAST VAMPIRE. I wondered if he’d reverted to some sort of historical chronicler, a shadow of the great writer of UNHOLY FIRE which literally tore my stomach out, such was its emotional power. And he has a stunning return to form here in LILITH’S DREAM. Never has Strieber unleashed such sensual prose upon the reader, never has he been so enjoyable, so decadent.
She laid her lips on his neck. He muttered something — a prayer, she supposed, to his silent god. When her tongue penetrated the skin, he made a small, internal sound of surprise. She felt intake of breath, then the beginnings of speech in his throat. She clenched the powerful muscle that encased her stomach, doing it so tightly that a bit of digestive fluid issued from her nose and ran busily down her jaw, hot and swift. Then the muscle unwound, opening her gut with hydraulic smoothness, the suction swooping his blood from his veins. The poetess Ashtar had called it “that movement beneath all others.”He made a long, babbling utterance of mixed confusion and fear, high with question, higher with complaint. Then his tongue began sputtering in his mouth, and his heels drummed the sodden bed. A fly rushed about her lips, frantically seeking the blood that bubbled out.
Ah, nice. An edible little man.
The movie of LILITH’S DREAM would feel like you’d just dropped the tastiest, most ungracious hit of acid EVER. You cannot, simply can not start the movie by telling the viewer that Myriam Blaylock, mother of Ian Ward with her vampire-hunter lover Paul Ward, is dead. Killed by Ward’s gun. You cannot show them that Myriam Blaylock’s female lover Sarah is also dead at the hands of Ward. You cannot show Lilith like a corpse rising from an Egyptian cave like a starved rat stinking of rot. You cannot show her as a ragged mess stowed away in a fishing boat on its way to New York.
Cut to the Hall of Mirrors, really the Hall of Dreams. See Lilith and her eternal soul mate rewriting history again and again in their wicked little game of love.
Cut to the great monuments of New York growing out of an Edwardian cesspit – show how humans have grown in status and stature.
Cut to a glowing vampire rising into a blood infused ecstasy.
Lilith’s Dream Plays Like a Straight Vampire Book
A simple sequel from the original HUNGER and its follow-up THE LAST VAMPIRE, this is nearly the book I’ve always wanted Strieber to tell. The book about the past. The book about the technology. The book about the history of the vampires and their human Keepers. I have always wanted Strieber to take us back in time to a place where the vampires were first born, first arrived, first started manipulating the human gene line. I wanted to be romanced by the sexual regalia of a vampire’s proximity. I wanted to fall in love with some alien creature the way cavemen of that long-ago meeting must have felt when faced with such beauty-exuding beasts that tore to the very soul of humanity. Supernatural creatures we would willingly give our lives to. Sacrifice our children. Release our own blood for them.
Such was the ancient power of the vampire.
When I wrote the short story RED, RED WINE with Alex Severin, I knew the depiction of our vampires with retractable ratchet-jointed bones and a secondary vagina ringed with hypodermic needles for feeding on cocks was spot on. And this book affirms my belief in that dreamlike part of the vampire legend.
These creatures can do super human things that are BEYOND the realm of human understanding. They are pure narrative. The are spell-binding horror creatures that look like your darkest fantasies. They are pure allure. They are the sound of blood rushing through a human heart, powered by a heart bathing in aeons of vampire love juice.
Strieber is a true sensualist. I did wonder about him when I was reading THE LAST VAMPIRE. I wondered if he’d reverted to some sort of historical chronicler, a shadow of the great writer of UNHOLY FIRE which literally tore my stomach out, such was its emotional power. And he has a stunning return to form here in LILITH’S DREAM. Never has Strieber unleashed such sensual prose upon the reader, never has he been so enjoyable, so decadent.
She laid her lips on his neck. He muttered something — a prayer, she supposed, to his silent god. When her tongue penetrated the skin, he made a small, internal sound of surprise. She felt intake of breath, then the beginnings of speech in his throat. She clenched the powerful muscle that encased her stomach, doing it so tightly that a bit of digestive fluid issued from her nose and ran busily down her jaw, hot and swift. Then the muscle unwound, opening her gut with hydraulic smoothness, the suction swooping his blood from his veins. The poetess Ashtar had called it “that movement beneath all others.”He made a long, babbling utterance of mixed confusion and fear, high with question, higher with complaint. Then his tongue began sputtering in his mouth, and his heels drummed the sodden bed. A fly rushed about her lips, frantically seeking the blood that bubbled out.
Ah, nice. An edible little man.
The movie of LILITH’S DREAM would feel like you’d just dropped the tastiest, most ungracious hit of acid EVER. You cannot, simply can not start the movie by telling the viewer that Myriam Blaylock, mother of Ian Ward with her vampire-hunter lover Paul Ward, is dead. Killed by Ward’s gun. You cannot show them that Myriam Blaylock’s female lover Sarah is also dead at the hands of Ward. You cannot show Lilith like a corpse rising from an Egyptian cave like a starved rat stinking of rot. You cannot show her as a ragged mess stowed away in a fishing boat on its way to New York.
Cut to the Hall of Mirrors, really the Hall of Dreams. See Lilith and her eternal soul mate rewriting history again and again in their wicked little game of love.
Cut to the great monuments of New York growing out of an Edwardian cesspit – show how humans have grown in status and stature.
Cut to a glowing vampire rising into a blood infused ecstasy.
May 18, 2010
(My Half-way-through review)
Ahhhh, where to begin? I want to like this book. I enjoyed both of the previous books for the most part, but this one? Meh.
Normally, I don't get caught up in the inconsistencies in books. I can overlook them and just enjoy the story for what it is. But I'm finding myself increasingly annoyed by Lilith's Dream.
Little things like the fact that Lilith is supposed to have been around since when mammoths roamed the earth, she's supposed to have interacted with humans within the last 200 years, she knows that the Germans perform(ed) something called the Blood Eagle upon her kind (which would indicate intelligence)...but now she's somehow surprised that humans have evolved into sentient beings? That they have souls? She somehow is completely oblivious to the fact that civilization has spread beyond Egypt? (she believes that Cairo must rule the world, given it's present size)
At the moment, she's coming across as nothing more than the over-sexed, vampiric Village Idiot. Hell, she even banged a dude for 4 days in the desert (in present day) while staying with his "tribe"...but she never figured out that humans have souls? It takes a miraculous kiss from a pre-teen girl (who just watched her equally young friend get eaten, I might add...obviously the little kiss-puppy is a complete hard-case) to realize this?
********3/4's Through Review*****
I'm liking this book less and less. I've taken to just skimming through the pages for the most part.
First, I'm curious if Strieber has a history of anti-Semitism? If not, he definitely comes across as anti-Semitic during some scenes. He refers time and again to how bad the blood of Jews tastes, how it causes Lilith to almost vomit, it is so bitter.
And what's up with the continual references to the drug X/Ecstasy?? We get it, Mr Strieber...you're a proponent of it's usage. If you're using it as a device to show hip and cool your characters are, you should know that the heyday of Ecstasy was about 20 years ago, in the early 90s.
***************The Final Review*******************
Good god, did trees really die so this atrocity could be published??
With a lot of books that I don't finish, it's usually because I just lose interest in them. With this one, I was actually becoming annoyed with the story/author.
Ahhhh, where to begin? I want to like this book. I enjoyed both of the previous books for the most part, but this one? Meh.
Normally, I don't get caught up in the inconsistencies in books. I can overlook them and just enjoy the story for what it is. But I'm finding myself increasingly annoyed by Lilith's Dream.
Little things like the fact that Lilith is supposed to have been around since when mammoths roamed the earth, she's supposed to have interacted with humans within the last 200 years, she knows that the Germans perform(ed) something called the Blood Eagle upon her kind (which would indicate intelligence)...but now she's somehow surprised that humans have evolved into sentient beings? That they have souls? She somehow is completely oblivious to the fact that civilization has spread beyond Egypt? (she believes that Cairo must rule the world, given it's present size)
At the moment, she's coming across as nothing more than the over-sexed, vampiric Village Idiot. Hell, she even banged a dude for 4 days in the desert (in present day) while staying with his "tribe"...but she never figured out that humans have souls? It takes a miraculous kiss from a pre-teen girl (who just watched her equally young friend get eaten, I might add...obviously the little kiss-puppy is a complete hard-case) to realize this?
********3/4's Through Review*****
I'm liking this book less and less. I've taken to just skimming through the pages for the most part.
First, I'm curious if Strieber has a history of anti-Semitism? If not, he definitely comes across as anti-Semitic during some scenes. He refers time and again to how bad the blood of Jews tastes, how it causes Lilith to almost vomit, it is so bitter.
And what's up with the continual references to the drug X/Ecstasy?? We get it, Mr Strieber...you're a proponent of it's usage. If you're using it as a device to show hip and cool your characters are, you should know that the heyday of Ecstasy was about 20 years ago, in the early 90s.
***************The Final Review*******************
Good god, did trees really die so this atrocity could be published??
With a lot of books that I don't finish, it's usually because I just lose interest in them. With this one, I was actually becoming annoyed with the story/author.
January 4, 2025
I read this once a long time ago and thought it was funny as well as interesting. Wanting to test my recall, I tried again and found it awful.
August 27, 2013
meh.
The only good thing I can say about this book is since this is a pre-Twilight vampire novel there are no sparkles!
Maybe I needed to read the others in the series first. I'm having a hard time summing up exactly what was wrong with this novel. First, This story seemed incredibly confusing. Lilith has odd flashbacks to possibly another time, or another world, or both. Leo talks about her previous life before becoming a vampire while she was basically a thrall. Paul and Becky seem to love each other, but the marriage was one of convenience. Ian acts like a smart teenager, but then he gets X just to hang out with girls. I couldn't connect to any of the characters emotionally, and none of them seemed very believable in the first place.
Spoiler?
Ian wandering off in New York, and going all the way to Egypt, with two strange women was completely ridiculous. Basically the whole second half of the book was stupid and full of bizarre sex and strange images. And Paul Ward wanting to kill his son. It made no sense.
Maybe it would make more if I had read the series, but the book isn't listed on the cover, or inside as "book 3 of" or anything like that, so I took it to mean it could be a stand-alone novel.
The only good thing I can say about this book is since this is a pre-Twilight vampire novel there are no sparkles!
Maybe I needed to read the others in the series first. I'm having a hard time summing up exactly what was wrong with this novel. First, This story seemed incredibly confusing. Lilith has odd flashbacks to possibly another time, or another world, or both. Leo talks about her previous life before becoming a vampire while she was basically a thrall. Paul and Becky seem to love each other, but the marriage was one of convenience. Ian acts like a smart teenager, but then he gets X just to hang out with girls. I couldn't connect to any of the characters emotionally, and none of them seemed very believable in the first place.
Spoiler?
Ian wandering off in New York, and going all the way to Egypt, with two strange women was completely ridiculous. Basically the whole second half of the book was stupid and full of bizarre sex and strange images. And Paul Ward wanting to kill his son. It made no sense.
Maybe it would make more if I had read the series, but the book isn't listed on the cover, or inside as "book 3 of" or anything like that, so I took it to mean it could be a stand-alone novel.
August 2, 2011
Strieber's efficiency with dialogue both works and doesn't work. It works in the sense that his plot twists generally happen through dialogue, thus the spareness often contains truly unforeseen surprises (an underrated and almost forgotten skill nowadays--twists that you can't see coming a mile away), but it doesn't work in that it's often confusing as to who is speaking and what is actually happening. When the point of view is from a slower perspective the story really flourishes. The opening pages from Lilith's point of view force the reader to slow down and take in the lush surroundings and hidden complexities behind a deceptively simple need, though this same perspective gets a bit muddy and too abstract towards the end of the book, and the epilogue feels like a tacked on publisher's balm.
October 14, 2013
I read this book several years ago. This was one of those books that I just grabbed because the title and book cover caught my eye. I enjoyed this book. It was surprisingly very good. I loved the story and it actually made me google, Lilith. I was amazed in all my years of going to church I had never heard of her. Not surprising though. I like Lilith's story. Just looked it up and I didn't know it was a trilogy and I had read the last one.
May 13, 2008
#3 in this trilogy
Woot! A series completed!
#1 The Hunger & #2 The Last Vampire: I enjoyed 1 & 2 more than #3. Tho written in the '80's (?), The Hunger is a terrific vampire book! Very different, a darker look at the vampire life.
Woot! A series completed!
#1 The Hunger & #2 The Last Vampire: I enjoyed 1 & 2 more than #3. Tho written in the '80's (?), The Hunger is a terrific vampire book! Very different, a darker look at the vampire life.
January 7, 2010
I liked it. Not as good as The Hunger, but I think that was because Strieber was working with a larger tapestry here.
If you've got a weekend sometime, this is a better use of your time than TV or mindless internet use.
If you've got a weekend sometime, this is a better use of your time than TV or mindless internet use.
February 18, 2012
I think I was missing information because I picked this up without realising it was book 3 of a series. Oh well.
May 22, 2012
It was alright. Not the best Vampire genre book I've read, but still kept my interest throughout.
March 16, 2016
This really was a disappointing read; some really, really inane garbage.
June 21, 2021
Read this after "The Hunger" and "The Last Vampire". All in all, I'd say it's slightly better than TLV, but not nearly as good as the first one. (26 years between that first book and TLV is nothing to sneeze at, but still.)
Spoilers, probably.
I liked the espionage part of this book! The exotic locations, the parents chasing their son across the world, etc. etc., that part was great! The sex stuff was...weird. Real weird. I felt like Lilith was an anti-Mary-Sue in the same way that Deadpool is an anti-hero; instead of people being instantly in love with her, people were instantly, degradingly turned on by her to the point that one man..well..yeah. It was weird, and not really something I felt was believable. (If she made humanity, why would she make them so completely unable to handle her presence without wanting to jump her bones? Literally? It's just weird.)
The last chapter before the epilogue seemed to belong to a completely different story. It reminded me of the end of "Pan's Labyrinth", in that I couldn't tell if this was the real reality behind the 'fake' reality that Lilith was a part of, or if she was hallucinating because she was dying. It was odd. The epilogue didn't help things, since it seemed to indicate that Lilith's actual dream had been reality a long time ago, but if that's true, then how did this present story happen? Was her dream in that other world a vision of the future? And why was her pregnancy significant? Who was she pregnant with?
In the end, I feel like this book left more questions than it answered. I wanted to know the fate of the creatures in Miriam's attic. Were they all completely destroyed? Or are they just up there for estate sales people to find? What's going to happen to her place?
There's so, so much more, but I can't remember it all. In the end, I felt like this book and TLV together were completely unnecessary, and it's clear that Strieber's encounter with aliens (or "visitors", as he calls them) in the 80s tainted whatever fiction he wrote after that. I suggest just taking the first book at face value, and leaving these others be (unless you just REALLY like Sarah Roberts...but I suggest not liking her *too* much, as her end in TLV is less than satisfying as well.)
Another thing you will never get an answer to is where Lilith and her kind came from, or why they drink blood, or what the point is of the soul to them, or anything of that sort. Not really. Just some vague allusions to vague biblical references that don't have anything to do with Biblical accuracy, or that even make sense in the long run.
Spoilers, probably.
I liked the espionage part of this book! The exotic locations, the parents chasing their son across the world, etc. etc., that part was great! The sex stuff was...weird. Real weird. I felt like Lilith was an anti-Mary-Sue in the same way that Deadpool is an anti-hero; instead of people being instantly in love with her, people were instantly, degradingly turned on by her to the point that one man..well..yeah. It was weird, and not really something I felt was believable. (If she made humanity, why would she make them so completely unable to handle her presence without wanting to jump her bones? Literally? It's just weird.)
The last chapter before the epilogue seemed to belong to a completely different story. It reminded me of the end of "Pan's Labyrinth", in that I couldn't tell if this was the real reality behind the 'fake' reality that Lilith was a part of, or if she was hallucinating because she was dying. It was odd. The epilogue didn't help things, since it seemed to indicate that Lilith's actual dream had been reality a long time ago, but if that's true, then how did this present story happen? Was her dream in that other world a vision of the future? And why was her pregnancy significant? Who was she pregnant with?
In the end, I feel like this book left more questions than it answered. I wanted to know the fate of the creatures in Miriam's attic. Were they all completely destroyed? Or are they just up there for estate sales people to find? What's going to happen to her place?
There's so, so much more, but I can't remember it all. In the end, I felt like this book and TLV together were completely unnecessary, and it's clear that Strieber's encounter with aliens (or "visitors", as he calls them) in the 80s tainted whatever fiction he wrote after that. I suggest just taking the first book at face value, and leaving these others be (unless you just REALLY like Sarah Roberts...but I suggest not liking her *too* much, as her end in TLV is less than satisfying as well.)
Another thing you will never get an answer to is where Lilith and her kind came from, or why they drink blood, or what the point is of the soul to them, or anything of that sort. Not really. Just some vague allusions to vague biblical references that don't have anything to do with Biblical accuracy, or that even make sense in the long run.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2022
2/5 🌟
No fue de mi estilo.
Para cualquiera que se esté preguntando si debe leer este libro mi respuesta es: si te gusto el segundo, sí.
En lo personal, creo que debí quedarme solamente con el primer libro. Este lo sentí largo, innecesario y salvo por los personajes qué continúan en los libros anteriores (es decir, Paul, Leo e Ian) el resto tiene 0 profundidad y/o personalidad.
La siguiente parte tiene ⚠️ SPOILERS ⚠️
Paul mato a Miriam y Sarah, por lo que ahora la historia se centra en Leo (la mujer a la convirtió Miriam casi al final del libro anterior), quien ahora es un cantante famosa.
Por otro lado, Paul se casoncon su compañera Becky y tienen un hijo adolescente llamado Ian, es adoptado (es el hijo de Paul y Miriam).
Además tenenos a una nueva vampira llamada Lilith. Ella a vivido en Egipto, Cairo para ser más especifica. Mientras tanto, Paul y Becky deciden volver al trabajo siguiendo pistas que los lleven a Leo. En un momento Lilith ve en la televisión a Leo y sabe que es una aliada, así que comienza buscarla llendo a NY. Leo tiene un concierto, Paul y Becky tienen boletos para seguirla más de cerca. En el Leo se encuentra con Ian y lo hace pasar como su invitado.
El show es en realidad un ritual, Leo y Lilith se llevan a Ian (no a la fuerza) a Egipto seguidos por Paul y Becky. Eventualmente Paul y Becky encuentran a Ian, Ian describe la verdad sobre él y los tres junto al equipo caza vampiros de Egipto idean un plan para vencer a Lilith usando a Ian como señuelo. Leo logro darse cuenta que a Lilith no le interesa ella, solo Ian por lo que intenta protegerlo también.
Lilith es vencida (en una "pelea" para nada memorable). En el epílogo se sabe que se mudaron a Egipto y ahí Ian conoció a una chica con la que podría casarse.
No fue de mi estilo.
Para cualquiera que se esté preguntando si debe leer este libro mi respuesta es: si te gusto el segundo, sí.
En lo personal, creo que debí quedarme solamente con el primer libro. Este lo sentí largo, innecesario y salvo por los personajes qué continúan en los libros anteriores (es decir, Paul, Leo e Ian) el resto tiene 0 profundidad y/o personalidad.
La siguiente parte tiene ⚠️ SPOILERS ⚠️
Paul mato a Miriam y Sarah, por lo que ahora la historia se centra en Leo (la mujer a la convirtió Miriam casi al final del libro anterior), quien ahora es un cantante famosa.
Por otro lado, Paul se casoncon su compañera Becky y tienen un hijo adolescente llamado Ian, es adoptado (es el hijo de Paul y Miriam).
Además tenenos a una nueva vampira llamada Lilith. Ella a vivido en Egipto, Cairo para ser más especifica. Mientras tanto, Paul y Becky deciden volver al trabajo siguiendo pistas que los lleven a Leo. En un momento Lilith ve en la televisión a Leo y sabe que es una aliada, así que comienza buscarla llendo a NY. Leo tiene un concierto, Paul y Becky tienen boletos para seguirla más de cerca. En el Leo se encuentra con Ian y lo hace pasar como su invitado.
El show es en realidad un ritual, Leo y Lilith se llevan a Ian (no a la fuerza) a Egipto seguidos por Paul y Becky. Eventualmente Paul y Becky encuentran a Ian, Ian describe la verdad sobre él y los tres junto al equipo caza vampiros de Egipto idean un plan para vencer a Lilith usando a Ian como señuelo. Leo logro darse cuenta que a Lilith no le interesa ella, solo Ian por lo que intenta protegerlo también.
Lilith es vencida (en una "pelea" para nada memorable). En el epílogo se sabe que se mudaron a Egipto y ahí Ian conoció a una chica con la que podría casarse.
January 20, 2019
První díl The Hunger byl výborný upírský horor a měl i poměrně kvalitní filmové zpracování (režíroval Tony Scott v roce 1983). Ohledně druhého dílu The Last Vampire jsem, mimo jiné, četl i názory že jde o knihu co nikdy neměla být napsána. Osobně bych asi nešel až tak daleko, ale je fakt že tajemno prvního dílu zde bylo nahrazeno akčním příběhem o jednotce mezinárodních zabijáků upírů. Po tomhle už člověka ani nepřekvapí když se tu najednou po staletích spánku kdesi uprostřed egyptské pouště probudí Lilith, matka všech upírů, a zdá se že si nejspíš bude chtít vzít zpátky svět, který jí kdysi patřil.
Váhám zda tomu dát tři nebo čtyři hvězdičky, nakonec tedy nechám čtyři. Ten příběh mi připadá hrozně ujetý, ale na druhou stranu se mi líbí styl jakým Whitley Strieber píše. Vlastně to nebyl zase až tak nejhorší sen...
Váhám zda tomu dát tři nebo čtyři hvězdičky, nakonec tedy nechám čtyři. Ten příběh mi připadá hrozně ujetý, ale na druhou stranu se mi líbí styl jakým Whitley Strieber píše. Vlastně to nebyl zase až tak nejhorší sen...
September 10, 2021
I loved the first two books, but this disappointed me. I guess cause this has a different protagonist; another female vampire. Not just any female vampire, but THE Lilith, Adam's first wife and the first vampire, as legends say. Not very creative. I did appreciate that since she has no knowledge of what has happened in the world for thousands of years, she struggles to communicate and understand, but it got a little old.
The plot was pretty slow, and it just never really properly grabbed me. I just didn't care for the characters.
While I did brace myself for the second book in case it wasn't as good as the first, loving the second probably made me have higher hopes for this one. Maybe I'll try it again sometime, since it's probably likely I'll want to re-read the other two.
The plot was pretty slow, and it just never really properly grabbed me. I just didn't care for the characters.
While I did brace myself for the second book in case it wasn't as good as the first, loving the second probably made me have higher hopes for this one. Maybe I'll try it again sometime, since it's probably likely I'll want to re-read the other two.
February 27, 2025
Very disappointed by this book, considering how much I loved the first two. I just could not get into caring about Paul being an abusive husband and father, or all the sexualization of a minor, or the weird insestual tones. The literal only part I enjoyed was witnessing Lilith learn about modern culture and trying to parse out wtf she was encountering. The TV took the longest for me to deciper, I thought it was just people in an office on a conference call at first and was very confused. Also, her terrible English at the start got a snort out of me. But otherwise it just felt distasteful and misogynistic
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 24, 2025
I'm so conflicted. I like the vampire mythology in this series. It puts a twist on vampire lore and their relationship to humans that is unique and I would like to see more of it. But the sex scenes are awful. Are these men putting heroin on their junk? Cause the female characters are written like they are. Also, this final book in the trilogy got a bit antisemitic at one point. Ugh.
December 14, 2025
I've enjoyed Strieber since Wolfen, and really like the Hunger. Perhaps it took to long to read the 2nd and 3rd 0f the stories, but I grew tired of this about 3/4 of the way through. At least I finished, I suppose.
February 20, 2020
Interesting ending to the trilogy , not that I understood it mind you
July 24, 2021
lilith said gaslight gatekeep girlboss
September 22, 2021
FABULOUS! Frenetic! Fierce! FRIGHTFULLY WONDERFUL!!! Primal, prime-evil! LOVED EVERY WORD!
October 19, 2021
I hated it, for whatever reason. I read half of it fifteen years ago, and it became one of the handful of books I put down without finishing.
March 27, 2022
Read in 2003. Continuing his vampire saga.
August 14, 2022
Ot as good as the first but much better than the 2nd.
July 4, 2023
Fun. Enjoyed it more than I expected to.
October 14, 2025
Criminally Underrated. Great themes of passion and God
March 7, 2015
1.5 stars Like most people, I had no idea this was book 3 in a series. It really didn’t encourage me to read the others (although I hear The Hunger is much better.) I wanted to like it, but couldn’t engage with the characters, the plot, or the themes of . . . of what? Humans are stupid food? Vampires are evil human-herders and must be destroyed? This is all a dream? What the hell?
Also, what was up with the flashbacks to another time/place/planet? Were we supposed to gain sympathy for Lilith and feel sorry for her as she rips apart people?
Was this novel supposed to be erotica? The voyeuristic bar scene surprised me – I get the sensuality of vampires, that is a common theme, but I found the idea of red-carpet, Hollywood elite donating to a charity and then being perfectly comfortable with what is essentially live porn being performed in front of them at that charity event to be highly unlikely.
Also, there were so many internal consistencies – a character tosses a gun away, then has it in hand the next scene. Suddenly, there are portable holes to vampire hiding places, just when the characters need to make an escape? Hmmmm.
The only redeeming thing about the book was the confusing and odd ending. I felt like here lies the real story, which seemed like it could have been far more interesting than the book I just read.
Also, what was up with the flashbacks to another time/place/planet? Were we supposed to gain sympathy for Lilith and feel sorry for her as she rips apart people?
Was this novel supposed to be erotica? The voyeuristic bar scene surprised me – I get the sensuality of vampires, that is a common theme, but I found the idea of red-carpet, Hollywood elite donating to a charity and then being perfectly comfortable with what is essentially live porn being performed in front of them at that charity event to be highly unlikely.
Also, there were so many internal consistencies – a character tosses a gun away, then has it in hand the next scene. Suddenly, there are portable holes to vampire hiding places, just when the characters need to make an escape? Hmmmm.
The only redeeming thing about the book was the confusing and odd ending. I felt like here lies the real story, which seemed like it could have been far more interesting than the book I just read.
September 20, 2012
I liked Strieber's first book. The second one was awful. This one is equally bad.
It is hard to believe that the scenes in the book were written by the same person. I completely buy the descriptions of Lilith and her perception of human world. I however hate his *humans*, if they can be called that. The worst dialog ever!
I have this book on My Kindle and after the firth third I had to skip over all of the *human* parts, they did not help with the story development, Paul and Sandy (*snicker*) are as wooden as a door.
Streiber has a conflict with his basic premise, too. If vampires bred humans over thousands of years, instilled them with intelligence and allowed the human history to happen, why does he suddenly take a moral ground and describes the vampires as evil and immoral? How is this any different from domestication of cattle and chicken? We eat them too and they are alive and sentient.
All that soul crap, too.
Entire book boiled down to about 30 pages of interesting impressions of the modern world from the point of an outsider. The rest was waste of time.
If you are dying from boredom you can read this. Otherwise there are so many better books out there...
It is hard to believe that the scenes in the book were written by the same person. I completely buy the descriptions of Lilith and her perception of human world. I however hate his *humans*, if they can be called that. The worst dialog ever!
I have this book on My Kindle and after the firth third I had to skip over all of the *human* parts, they did not help with the story development, Paul and Sandy (*snicker*) are as wooden as a door.
Streiber has a conflict with his basic premise, too. If vampires bred humans over thousands of years, instilled them with intelligence and allowed the human history to happen, why does he suddenly take a moral ground and describes the vampires as evil and immoral? How is this any different from domestication of cattle and chicken? We eat them too and they are alive and sentient.
All that soul crap, too.
Entire book boiled down to about 30 pages of interesting impressions of the modern world from the point of an outsider. The rest was waste of time.
If you are dying from boredom you can read this. Otherwise there are so many better books out there...
March 2, 2011
Read it to complete the trilogy: it's the last piece in a downwards spiral started by nr. 2. Pity, the Hunger was nice.
Ok, so there are a few nice moments but it's hard to take the book seriously.
Major spoiler: the idea of a prehistoric vampire risen from under a pyramid (with an elongated head [probably from reading every scroll in the hall of records, whoop whoop for mentioning it] but otherwise quite dashing) trying to eat the horny local des(s)ert people whilst driving and shifting a sodden modern vehicle is quite funny. The drug induced orgy (from the second book) set in the hippest bar imaginable was equally entertaining(/disturbing). Now what to read next? Only the abduction chronicle will do. Anticipating goodies...
Ok, so there are a few nice moments but it's hard to take the book seriously.
Major spoiler: the idea of a prehistoric vampire risen from under a pyramid (with an elongated head [probably from reading every scroll in the hall of records, whoop whoop for mentioning it] but otherwise quite dashing) trying to eat the horny local des(s)ert people whilst driving and shifting a sodden modern vehicle is quite funny. The drug induced orgy (from the second book) set in the hippest bar imaginable was equally entertaining(/disturbing). Now what to read next? Only the abduction chronicle will do. Anticipating goodies...
May 27, 2015
The last in The Hunger series. It's a little sad to see our beloved Miriam NOT take center stage, and instead introduce Lilith... the biblical Lilith. If The Last Vampire seemed like a different road than The Hunger, then Lilith's Dream is a different highway all together. Still an amazing high-octane read, this third and final act concludes with a lot of satisfaction. Once again Mr. Whitley breathes such life into his characters, it's very easy to find yourself struggling with them... standing beside them... and journeying among them. Of course I would absolutely recommend this series to anyone; The Hunger, The Last Vampire, & Lilith's Dream. His work is on of the inspirations in pursuing my own writing.
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