[Book Review] Empire of the Dawn (Empire of the Vampire 3) — Jay Kristoff

The dark fantasy trilogy, Empire of the Vampire, comes to its grim, dark, and violent finale in the third and final entry, Empire of the Dawn. And we are here to the bloody end.

The Empire of the Vampire trilogy has always felt like the blasphemous lovechild of various dark fantasy, vampire themed stories of the past. Fusing the panache of Interview With A Vampire, and the over-the-top violence and stylistic horror of Castlevania, this series has infused much needed energy into a genre fallen into recent disrepute. I voraciously consumed the first book, Empire of the Vampire, and reviewed an ARC of Empire of the Damned, so it is only natural for me to slake my bloodlust by sinking my fangs into the final entry, Empire of the Dawn.

This is as bloody as GrimDark gets.

The final entry moves our paleblood protagonist, The Last Silversaint, Gabriel de Leon towards his final showdown with the Forever King himself, the major antagonist of the series. After the devastating end of the events in Damned, Gabriel’s charge, the scion and heir of the messiah, Dior LaChance is presumed dead, crushing Gabriel’s already frail morale, pushing him towards a suicidal last stand to take down the Forever King and end the eternal darkness and plague of the vampires damning the empire.

Empire of the Dawn is structured in the same way as Vampire, and Damned — as a dual timeline juggling between Gabriel narrating past events to Marquis Jean Francois Chaistain, imperial scribe to the Empress Chastain and the past events being recounted in real time. While this structure felt novel in the first entry, it already felt stretched out and exhausting through the lengthy page count of Damned, and now feels interminable (even though we know this is the final entry) in Dawn. Following the same structure with very little variability in tone, especially with the dynamic between Gabriel and Jean Francois evolving at a clotting pace, makes this structure quite tedious. Nevertheless, we persevere.

Joining Gabriel in his mad last stand are a few returning characters from previous entries. His faithful apprentice (focus on “faith”ful), the youthful, rapier-witted, gunslinging Silversaint brother, Lachlan “Lachie” a Craig joins Gabriel. His conflicts with Gabriel stem from his ardent faith towards his religion and his order of the Silversaints, both of which Gabriel utterly rejects now. The brute-with-a-heart-of-gold, mortal blacksmith Baptiste and his husband, the now-turned vampire Aaron de Coste, round out Gabriel’s merry men (well, mostly men). The relationship between the faithful-yet-utterly-mortal Baptiste and the newly-freed-but-still-tormented Aaron forms the central emotional conflict of the first section of the book. Much of the book is spent following Gabriel navigating his compatriot’s conflicts, while wrestling with his own failures, while steeling himself to take on the unsurmountable task of ending the perpetual darkness that plagues this world and stopping the Forever King and the other Elder Vampire families.

The introduction of the cannibalistic vampire and Gabriel’s hated sister, Celene Castia was the highlight of Damned, and she is elevated to central character in Dawn. With the structure of Dawn alternating between Gabriel’s and Celene’s storylines, we get a much deeper look into Celene’s past, hinting heavily at the reason for the animosity between her and her half-brother Gabriel. Her story also adds to the dense mythology of the five vampire families, with their own dark qualities, adding depth to the entire saga. Her chapters added new emotional heft to her otherwise badass character sketch from the previous book, and even makes the reader feel emotional for a vampire that consumes the souls of other vampires. Somehow, Kristoff made it happen, and we are glad for it.

In Dawn, we get to explore new locations in the empire, and meet new side characters, some of which have a deep connection to Gabriel’s past and help flesh out his character arc. His faithful sword, the broken (inside and out) Ashdrinker, continues to be among my favorite “characters” of the series. The duskdancer (shapeshifter) love-interest Phoebe Dunnsair joins in, with her plotline adding to the mounting grief that is Gabriel’s existence. The rogue’s gallery is also expanded as we finally get to behold the dark majesty of the Forever King, Fabien Voss himself, along with his bloodline of beautiful and terrible creations. For those who reveled in the Renaissance-gothic aesthetic of Van Helsing and Castlevania, your thirst will be sated by the myriad characters presented in this book.

Sadly, many of the issues I had with the first two books, persist in the third, with little to no change. As mentioned, the narrative-style has grown quite tiresome after two books. In addition, Empire of the Dawn is a doorstopper of a novel, with many set pieces across many locations, involving an entire slew of characters stuffed into its bloated pagecount. The overall glacial pace continues in Empire of the Dawn, with the closing third feeling entirely too drawn out, making it feel like too little blood spread over too much skin.

It is a challenging task to make us feel concerned about the wellbeing of nigh-invulnerable vampires with superhero-esque powers. Kristoff counters this by speedrunning his treadmill of grief, pushing his characters through a physical, mental, and emotional meatgrinder. Towards the final moments, Gabriel and Celene have been through so much torture, that readers become as immune to it as they seem to be. The narrative style also provides the plot armor to show that both Gabriel and Celene survive to tell their tales, removing most of the gravitas of the violence inflicted upon them. Now the side characters, most of which we have come to know and love, that is an entirely different (and bloody) story.

Speaking of the author, Kristoff’s edgelord prose, now a trademark style, persists in Dawn with little to no sign of letting up. His overwrought style is a prime example of “style over substance”. However, after consuming many of his books over the years, I have grown accustomed to (and even daresay accept, or “like”) his particularly niche style of hyperstylistic dark fantasy prose, once I stopped trying to fight it. With plenty of male gaze-y elements of over-the-top power fantasies, long stretches of morose brooding and self-pity, and overt sexuality, Kristoff’s brand of dark fantasy makes no illusion of its intended audience.

Ending a trilogy with an extensive cast of chracters, and branching plotlines is a daunting task for most authors, and Kristoff makes a valiant effort to tie all the bloodlines together into a climactic crescendo. For a series leaning so heavily on emotional investment and grief as its central tenets, ending the series on a coherent and rewarding note is a gargantuan challenge. The ending of Empire of the Dawn and the Empire of the Vampire trilogy, however, will divide audiences with an intensity befitting the series. While some may praise his genius to call all the little breadcrumbs he laid out over the three books, others will feel incredibly dissatisfied with the overly “neat” conclusion of an otherwise grimdark experience which centers on resilience in the face of crushing loss. If nothing else, Kristoff has ruffled all our collective feathers, and blood will be spilled in various forums.

Special mention must be made to the amazing artwork throughout the series, with the pieces in Dawn being particularly spectacular. The connection to Jean-Francois’ own artwork while taking down the tale is a masterstroke. While a mammoth undertaking unto itself, to say that the effort was worth it is scant praise!

Now that Dawn hath finally come to the Vampire, and the Damned have found their retribution, one can only look to the darkness, to see what Kristoff has buried in his next coffin.