Contemporary Authors

• A People's History of the Vampire Uprising ( novel) Little, Brown and Co. (New York, NY), 2018

• Raymond A. Villareal - https://www.raymondavillareal.com/about/

  Raymond A. Villareal
  Raymond A. Villareal is a practicing attorney in San Antonio, Texas. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and the University of Texas School of Law. His first novel, A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising will be published on June 5, 2018. Film rights have been optioned by 20th Century Fox and 21 Laps Entertainment.

Print Marked Items
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE
UPRISING
Arlene Mckanic
BookPage.
(June 2018): p22.
COPYRIGHT 2018 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text: 
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING
By Raymond A. Villareal
Mulholland $27, 432 pages ISBN 9780316561686 Audio, eBook available
A title like A People's History of the Vampire Uprising suggests a story that is way cool, with lots of spine-chilling action and armies of vampires
and vampire slayers. Of course, we think we know who wins in the end. But Raymond A. Villareal's novel doesn't quite work like that. His tale is
a little disturbing, and that's a good thing. It functions somewhat as an allegory: The vampires are the 1 percent and everyone else is, well,
everyone else.
In Villareal's world, vampirism is the result of a plain old virus--though there's nothing plain about a virus that imparts superhuman speed and
strength, a greatly lengthened life span, infertility and the obligation to drink human blood and stay out of the sun. Like the vampirism of folklore,
the condition is passed along via a bite, a practice that the vampires, who call themselves Gloamings, are reluctant to talk about. But that's pretty
much the only thing they're modest about. Determined to take over the world, they're choosy about who they "recreate." The lucky few tend to be
rich and powerful. Folks from the 99 percent are exsanguinated before their bodies are dumped in roadside ditches, or they're kept on "farms" as a
ready blood supply.
Villareal brilliantly and stealthily examines how Gloamings have abandoned being human. Amoral in ways that normals can't comprehend, the
Gloamings only act to advance their situation. This might mean donating blood to sick children, getting Gloaming-friendly legislation passed or
murdering political opponents or anyone who's in their way. These creatures use the levers of government, society and religion to get what they
want. And a lot of people fall for it. This becomes the new normal.
A People's History of the Vampire Uprising is an unsettling book. It's also a warning.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Mckanic, Arlene. "A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING." BookPage, June 2018, p. 22. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540052010/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=87733a8a. Accessed 1 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540052010
Villareal, Raymond A.: A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF
THE VAMPIRE UPRISING
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Villareal, Raymond A. A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $27.00 6, 5
ISBN: 978-0-316-56168-6
The oral history of the bloody beginnings of a worldwide vampire revolt.
This debut novel by attorney Villareal has already been the subject of a six-figure bidding war for film rights--not a surprise, considering that this
horror epic takes roughly the same approach to bloodsuckers Max Brooks applied to zombies in World War Z (2006). It starts when CDC
virologist Lauren Scott is summoned to Nogales, Arizona, to examine the dead body of a girl named Liza Sole. The soon-undead victim quickly
decides to split, but not before Scott gets a sense of her: "Temptation in human form." Scott quickly finds that her discovery, Nogales organic
blood illness, or NOBI, does indeed grant its victims fangs, an aversion to the sun, and a life span up to 300 years. As the NOBI infection spreads,
these vampires, now identifying as "Gloamings," start to aggressively demand equal rights, despite the growing tide of bloodless bodies in the
street. The risky process of making a vampire by passing on the virus is dubbed "re-creation" and attracts enthusiasts from Taylor Swift to the
pope. Villareal handles his sexy vampires well, giving them interesting abilities and aspects without granting immortality. Elsewhere, the book
follows Hugo Zumthor, the FBI agent in charge of the Gloaming Crimes Unit; a radicalized anti-Gloaming Catholic sect; and Joseph Barrera, a
slick political operative whose life is upended when he joins the campaign of the first Gloaming candidate for governor. Some of the story's
elements (read: religious conspiracy) may seem derivative, but overall it offers a wide-ranging, readable thrill ride for fans of the genre. While the
book fails to match the sociopolitical insights of World War Z, it delivers a spectacularly creepy ecosphere, not to mention some genuinely
horrifying frights. Interstitial elements like magazine articles and social media posts help augment Villareal's ambitious worldbuilding.
The start of a vampire epic and a strong contender in the genus of apocalypse fantasy.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Villareal, Raymond A.: A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532700572/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=11815791. Accessed 1 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532700572

• TOR
  https://www.tor.com/2018/06/07/book-reviews-a-peoples-history-of-the-vampire-uprising-by-raymond-a-villareal/
  Word count: 1042

  BOOK REVIEWS
  World War V: A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising by Raymond A. Villareal
  Liz Bourke
  Thu Jun 7, 2018 2:30pm 5 comments 1 Favorite [+]

  A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising is Raymond A. Villareal’s debut novel. Billing itself as a “panoramic fictional oral history,” it purports to take the oral accounts of various different people to construct a narrative of the rise of vampirism in the modern United States. Its first-person narrators include Lauren Scott, a research physician from the Centre for Disease Control (who inexplicably fails to correct the vast number of people who call her “Miss Scott”); an FBI agent called Hugo Zumthor; a political fixer called Joseph Barrera; and Marcy Noll, a member of the political establishment who ends up on the National Security Council. As part of its constructed narrative, it also includes a set of “transcripts” from interrogation interviews of an American Catholic priest and Jesuit brother, Fr. John Reilly S.J.

  I wish I could say otherwise, but it really isn’t all that good. It sounds like it should be good—it sounds like it could be World War Z but with vampires—but in reality, it’s an overambitious mess without anything like a narrative arc, and filled with characters who are at best shallow caricatures of real people and at worst are unmitigated cardboard cutouts around which the author hangs incidents that in other hands might actually feel like they mean something, but here are just one damn thing after another.

  BUY IT NOW

  Maybe I’m bitter. Maybe it’s because a book about a disease that leads to vampirism—a “people’s history” of a disease that leads to vampirism—seems like it should really have an international element, but A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising is deeply American-centric and I am very tired of stories that treat America as all of the world that matters. Maybe it’s because where A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising isn’t wholly concerned with the American political landscape, it’s focused on the inner workings of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic-y parts seem to assume that no one in the Church is motivated, in whole or in part, by genuine and considered religious sentiment that has rigorous intellectual backing. As an ex-Catholic, much as I dislike the entire institution, even I have to admit that’s far from accurate, but Villareal’s Church is home to scheming monsignors, a drunken Irish priest, and a Jesuit who really doesn’t seem particularly Jesuitical. (All the way down to not appearing to have followed a regular Jesuit formation—but even aside from the fact his career seems to be upside down, Fr. Reilly doesn’t even have a particularly good argument for breaking his oaths of obedience to his oath and his pope, and one expects a Jesuit to have a good argument, at the very least.)

  I don’t think I’m bitter. On top of these issues, A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising is largely incoherent as a narrative. It begins when Scott is called in to assess a possible new disease in Arizona. Over the course of several months and several other viewpoints, the reader learns that this disease looks a lot like vampirism. Vampires (“Gloamings”) make inroads on equal rights and political power in America and in the Catholic Church. There is an ongoing question of murder and conspiracy: are vampires murdering humans for blood? Who is responsible for thefts of large amounts of gold? Are vampires or a faction thereof planning on causing (and surviving) global nuclear winter and keeping humans for food? Is vampirism a disease to be cured or are vampires the new model minority? (I’d really prefer not to get in to how poorly this book works when it turns to discussing civil rights and making analogies, but it struck me as fairly tone deaf.)

  A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising asks these questions, and doesn’t trouble itself to answer them. (Perhaps it’s “Part One,” and “Part Two” is forthcoming?) Of course, its largest conspiratorial strand, the Catholic Church one, is told through Reilly’s interview transcripts, and these transcripts don’t read like an interview at all, but rather a bog-standard first-person point-of-view narration (albeit one with occasional interjections), Reilly is not particularly well-developed as a character or as a Jesuit, and his narration is, on top of not being believable as a transcript, not particularly compelling, either.

  My reaction to most of A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising can be boiled down to: why should I care about any of this? That said, there was enough in it, if barely, to keep me reading, though I confess to having been hoping for a somewhat better resolution to the conspiracy plotline (and some more character development for Dr. Scott) than actually turned out to be the case.

  A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising is a novel about which I would like to be engaged enough to be scathing. But it’s hard to be properly scathing about something so deeply mediocre. I’m sure that it will speak to some people: for me, it fails to even be interestingly bad. It comes across as slapdash but self-important, and that’s a mode of art that’s absolutely not my scene.

  A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising is available from Mulholland Books.

  Liz Bourke is a cranky queer person who reads books. She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin. Her first book, Sleeping With Monsters, a collection of reviews and criticism, was published in 2017 by Aqueduct Press. It’s a finalist for the 2018 Locus Awards and is nominated for a Hugo Award in Best Related Work. Find her at her blog, where she’s been known to talk about even more books thanks to her Patreon supporters. Or find her at her Twitter. She supports the work of the Irish Refugee Council and the Abortion Rights Campaign.

• The Washington Post
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-vampire-novel-we-deserve-right-now/2018/06/01/267daaa8-6451-11e8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c92eb6b1e0d4
  Word count: 771

  Books Review
  The vampire novel we deserve right now
  By Elizabeth Hand
  June 5
  Think things are tough now on the national scene? Wait till the vampires arrive, agitating for equal rights, medical treatment, nighttime access to schools and representation in Congress. That’s the scenario spun by Raymond A. Villareal in his relentlessly clever first novel, “A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising.”

  (Mulholland)
  A fictional oral history — compiled from newspaper and magazine articles, online posts, notes from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specialist, transcripts of FBI interviews and more — “A People’s History” traces a viral outbreak from its onset in Nogales, Ariz. Lauren Scott, a young CDC research physician, is dispatched to the border town to examine a three-day-old corpse “exhibiting unusual hemophilia bruising and intradermal contusions over ninety percent of the body.” Problem is, that particular body has disappeared, though another corpse with similar bruising lies in the morgue.

  But wait! There are two circular wounds — “maybe a bite” — near the carotid artery. Also, two top molars seem to be loose.

  At this point, readers everywhere will be shouting, “Vampires — run!” But it takes a while longer for Scott and her likable sidekick, Hector Gomez, head of the Nogales health department, to catch on. Given the CDC’s response time to real-life epidemics, from AIDS to the current opioid crisis, maybe this isn’t so unlikely. . . .

  Drs. Scott and Gomez search for Patient Zero: a woman named Liza Soles, the corpse who, it turns out, has been reanimated by her exposure to the Nogales Organic Blood Illness (NOBI) virus. They catch up with her in the art mecca of Marfa, Tex., looking like “a young Patti Smith busking in front of the Chelsea Hotel.” (Villareal’s tongue-in-cheek references to the contemporary arts world are a running joke throughout.)

  Liza escapes, but not before Scott gets a blood sample, which allows her to determine that the virus causes an allergic reaction to sunlight and can be spread only by direct contact. Those who survive develop “solipsism syndrome,” a severe form of narcissistic personality disorder. Because of their aversion to daylight, survivors call themselves Gloamings — and most of them don’t report their infection to doctors.

  It soon becomes clear that NOBI carriers are choosing whom they bite based on the trifecta of beauty, wealth and talent. Taylor Swift is the first celebrity to sign on, followed by various politicians, crime lords, the pope and video artist Matthew Barney.

  Author Raymond A. Villareal (Ryan Humphries)
  There are some unanticipated side effects, of course. Those infected develop a weird sort of radioactivity that renders it impossible to record them on film . This makes it difficult for the NFL to televise games featuring Gloaming players, and it also presents challenges for Gloamings running for political office.

  Still, within a short time, this select group has become the new 1 percent: They form the Equal People movement and petition Congress to be protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) . Less than 18 months after Liza’s disappearance, the president signs the Gloaming Rights Act.

  If you think this is a good idea, you may be a Gloaming yourself.

  Villareal’s cheeky blend of political satire and gothic thriller is enhanced by his background as an attorney and his deft use of convincing details: the science behind the NOBI virus; the Gloamings’ legal defense in their efforts to be recognized under the ADA; minutes from congressional hearings; copious footnotes; and three brief appendixes.

  Aside from its ironic allusion to Howard Zinn’s classic, “A People’s History of the United States,” Villareal’s novel is somewhat reminiscent of Christopher Farnsworth’s Nathaniel Cade series, though Farnsworth is a better prose stylist. A numbing Vatican subplot, featuring Jesuit derring-do and a Marian prophecy, threatens to put a stake into the narrative. (That particular vein of mysterioso Catholicism was tapped out long ago by Dan Brown and Anne Rice.) But Villareal wisely shifts focus back to Scott and Gomez, along with an engaging FBI agent who cracks dorky vampire jokes.

  Unsurprisingly, Villareal’s debut has already been sold to 20th Century Fox for an eventual movie adaptation. With its doggedly unglamorous investigators pitted against a cabal of narcissistic, wealth-obsessed bloodsuckers, this wild ride of a novel proves that each era gets the vampires it deserves.

  Elizabeth Hand’s most recent book is “Fire,” a collection of essays and short fiction.

• USA Today
  https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/06/05/book-review-peoples-history-vampire-uprising-raymond-villareal/668250002/
  Word count: 553

  Clever 'Vampire Uprising': These blood-suckers are demanding their civil rights!
  Brian Truitt, USA TODAY Published 1:26 p.m. ET June 5, 2018 | Updated 1:04 p.m. ET June 6, 2018
  636637204188289851-Villareal-ABriefHistoryoftheVampire-HC-1-.jpg
  (Photo: Mulholland Books)

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  Having vampires and humans living and working together in society is just asking for a whole lot of bad blood.

  Conflict, conspiracy, curiosity and chaos all arise in Raymond A. Villareal’s debut novel, A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising (Mulholland, 432 pp., ★★★ out of four).

  In a nod to what World War Z did for zombies, Vampire Uprising chronicles roughly 3½ years after the discovery of a virus that gives its hosts extraordinary abilities and a penchant for plasma.

  The subject matter is somewhat familiar — albeit clever in exploring vampiric tendencies — and the story derivative at times. But Villareal smartly fleshes out an intriguing what-if scenario with civilization-altering turns and political gamesmanship.

  Vampire Rising follows a cast of characters through various accounts, documents and articles that detail the Gloamings (they’d rather not be called “vampires,” please and thank you) and their gradual infection into all walks of life.

  It begins with Liza Sole, a presumed-dead woman who walks right out of an Arizona morgue. CDC researcher Lauren Scott crosses the country to investigate, and she’s the first to make headway into figuring out the mysterious NOBI virus that starts spreading across America.

  Uprising takes the romantic concept of vampires as tempting, beautiful and arrogant creatures who live for centuries and extrapolates it to modern culture.

  Celebrities and power players want to be “re-created” as Gloamings — they even get their name courtesy of a Taylor Swift social-media post — and the vamps start fighting for their civil rights as they play a bigger role in the everyday world. (The fact that a growing percentage of the American workforce can only come out at night is just one of many problems.)

  Author Raymond A. Villareal.
  Author Raymond A. Villareal. (Photo: Ryan Humphries)

  The storytelling is picked up by a Catholic priest; the head of the FBI’s Gloaming Crimes Unit; a political operative involved with a Gloaming gubernatorial candidate; a nurse who signs up with an anti-vamp terrorist group and others as Uprising shifts from police procedural to social satire to international mystery and back.

  Naturally, deadly complications arise when one part of the population needs to feed from the blood of the rest. As key players’ narratives intertwine, the plot becomes much more about real-world stakes than horror-movie staking.

  The oral-history structure is both a positive and a negative for Uprising. Some of the drier chapters lean into Congressional testimony and legal mumbo-jumbo — Villareal is a real Texas attorney, so that stuff’s solid if not scintillating. Yet he brings his characters’ personalities alive in satisfying fashion, which buoys the expositional parts and helps drive narrative momentum.

  Vampire Uprising is well worth a bite: The creature-feature crew will discover that recognizable tropes can feel fresh, and readers who aren’t horror fiends will find a beguiling entry into the thoughts of Dracula and his ilk living among us.

• Compulsive Reader
  http://www.compulsivereader.com/2018/06/12/a-review-of-a-peoples-history-of-the-vampire-uprising-by-raymond-a-villareal/
  Word count: 569

  A review of A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising by Raymond A. Villareal
  June 12, 2018
  Reviewed by Carl Delprat

  A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising
  By Raymond A. Villareal
  Hachette Australia
  418pages, May 29, 2018, ISBN: 9780733639708, RRP$2

  It’s not every day I get hold of a novel that blows my socks right off. A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising has all the hallmarks of a super-story, something really big, along the lines of The Da Vinci Code mystery thriller. Right now, 20th Century Fox is looking into the movie rights. This first novel by Raymond A. Villareal sits right on the cutting edge of today’s mind set where narcissism is the new black. At first I took the plot for a parody on current fashionable trends. The analogies are certainly consistent with contemporary inclinations.

  We now all live in alternate universes alongside ice addicts, alienated Goths, self-mutilated exhibitionists, fundamentalist chosen ones, wild political tribes, feral egotists, tree huggers, gun waving patriots, and uber-conservatives. So why should a new influx of the Gloamings make the slightest difference? A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising is a very professional presentation and much like a TV documentary. You get to meet Dr Lauren Scott who works for the Centre of Disease Prevention, a possible nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Next stop is at an Arizona boarder town where Dr Scott meets and teams up with a Dr Hector Gomez and from that point there they start uncovering a series of blood drained bodies.The first full-time vampire named Lisa Sole makes her appearance; she is immensely strong, possesses superhuman abilities and easily escapes from custody. Another new character emerges. A lone wolf Jesuit Priest named Father Riley who is computer savvy and comes with direct Vatican connections. Raymond A. Villareal is certainly keeping all his options wide open. Further on into this book we meet the Catholic clergy Gloamings, Senator Gloamings and a very powerful lobbying group for promoting Gloaming activity and community acceptance. So… what are these Gloamings?

  The Gloamings are not unlike a number of people you already have been acquainted with. First of all, they posses a proud image of themselves and relationships between humans and Gloamings don’t succeed. Their personality leans towards a narcissistic personality disorder or having psychopathic tendencies. They have had a re-creation experience that altered certain biological processes within their brain. Gloamings share certain traits: high IQ, contempt of others, cruelty to others, amoral, secretive, grandiose, and an authoritarian attitude. Gloamings age slowly, expected live span is over 200 years and they also have exceptional physical strength.

  There is never a dull moment throughout Villareal’s novel. I’m not generally the type of reader who’s into vampires, but this novel is on a completely different foundation. Villareal’s detailed portrayals will be very familiar to readers. His gloamings are out there now – they are those celebrities and political leaders that we worship and imitate. This is a book with wide-reaching appeal, which is going to be very very big. You heard it here first.

  About the reviewer: Carl Delprat is a prolific storyteller. His home is the Australian coastal city of Newcastle, New South Wales. Find his books at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/CarlDelprat

• Fresh Fiction
  http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=66026
  Word count: 804

  A People's History of the Vampire Uprising
  Raymond A. Villareal
  Reviewed by Debbie Wiley
  Posted June 1, 2018

  Horror | Fantasy

  Vampires (known as the Gloaming) are here and their rise to power has been swift. But how did it all start? From the discovery of the NOBI virus to the struggle for power within our government and the Vatican, A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING chronicles the rise of the Gloamings... and the lives destroyed in the process.

  It's hard for me to resist a vampire story, even more so when told in epistolary format. A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING will resonate with fans of WORLD WAR Z as we are given excerpts from the rise of the Gloamings through the eyes of those on the frontlines. In fact, I actually enjoyed A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE RISING more as we see the continuing story of various characters rather than getting single dispatches from them, never to see them again.

  We start with Dr. Lauren Scott, a research physician for the Centers for Disease Control. I love how Raymond A. Villareal draws us into the medical mystery she faces, even as we begin to see her biases emerge over time. Hugo Zumthor's perspective gives us a solid law enforcement foundation as to how the Gloaming's rise to power is affecting crime. However, it is Father John Reilly whose story intrigues me even now. I want to know more about this Catholic priest and his quest to understand how the Gloaming fits within his faith. I could read an entire novel on his story and not have enough as his contradictions, even to himself, are fascinating.

  One of the other aspects that makes A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING so intriguing are the various pieces of media interspersed throughout the various ongoing stories. Whether it's an article from TMZ or transcript before the US House of Representatives or a fluff piece in People magazine, articles detailing how society and our government are coping with the Gloaming enhance the overall feel of the book as a true history story. It's easy to get lost in A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING and forget that it's not actually a history connected to any other book series- although, yes, I dearly hope this is only the beginning.

  A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING is the book vampire fans have been waiting for. We've dealt with a market glut of vampire books, searching for the book that will remind us of why we first fell in love with vampires and now Raymond A. Villareal has a book that reminds of all the deliciously dark reasons we love our vampire novels. Film rights have already been optioned for this phenomenal book and I'm excited by the possibilities. If you read just one vampire novel this year, make it A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING.

  Learn more about A People's History of the Vampire Uprising
  SUMMARY
  In this ambitious and wildly original debut--part social-political satire, part international mystery--a new virus turns people into something a bit more than human, upending society as we know it.

  This panoramic fictional oral history begins with one small mystery: the body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, disappears from the town morgue. To the young CDC investigator called in to consult with the local police, it's an impossibility that threatens her understanding of medicine.

  Then, more bodies, dead from an inexplicable disease that solidified their blood, are brought to the morgue, only to also vanish. Soon, the U.S. government--and eventually biomedical researchers, disgruntled lawmakers, and even an insurgent faction of the Catholic Church--must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world.

  With heightened strength and beauty and a stead diet of fresh blood, these changed people, or "Gloamings," rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society. Soon people are beginning to be "re-created," willingly accepting the risk of death if their bodies can't handle the transformation. As new communities of Gloamings arise, society is divided, and popular Gloaming sites come under threat from a secret terrorist organization. But when a charismatic and wealthy businessman, recently turned, runs for political office--well, all hell breaks loose.

  Told from the perspective of key players, including a cynical FBI agent, an audacious campaign manager, and a war veteran turned nurse turned secret operative, A People's History of the Vampire Uprising is an exhilarating, genre-bending debut that is as addictive as the power it describes.