Praise for "Worth Their Weight in Blood" from writer Peter Hamilton

Dear Carole,

I have just finished it and I think it is fantastic. Much more than a 
vampire novel. Really very original. I found the finale at the ZOM 
laboratory utterly gripping and I also really enjoyed the Church Hall 
concert, which was very well observed. I thought it was very well 
written on many levels - as a mystery thriller, the suspense was very 
well handled. I find Scarlet's character of central interest, as it 
should be with a first person narrator, particularly her meditations 
on the 'soul' that she has lost, capacity to love, and really what is 
the best way to live: as a dynamic alpha or a humble, more self-
sacrificing person. I also very much appreciated the topography of 
the novel: ZOM  is built on the ground of her innocence, the 
heathland where she played 'as a muddy teenager' which is just beyond 
the failed medieval church. It seems to me to be a metaphor about 
growing up on one level. It is also in many ways a very religious 
book in that it's about a godless world of fallen people and about 
attempts to re-form a morality which originally stems from Religion, 
on pure rationality. I had some difficulty absorbing all the 
evolutionary science. Also I couldn't really see that she was to 
blame for all that happens because she had rejected Roman ( I loved 
the Death Of The Salesman, by the way) but could see more that it 
came from the tension between her being attracted to Helios and 
Hunter at the same time, the contest between Altruism and 
Individualism perhaps. I didn't think it was at all cliched - far too 
mad and original and disturbing and not at all literary. In fact I 
thought it was  anti-literary in its rawness. All in all one of the 
most unusual things I've ever read - on a par with Gurdjieff and 
Proust. I don't know about a sequel. I think it might be good to try 
something more mainstream. You have so much to say and and are so 
naturally thoughtful that I think it would be a revelation. But think 
this book deserves an Alpha-Plus.

Congratulations for a stunning work

Peter

extract from my novel Worth Their Weight in Blood

Lucy frowned as she watched me pant. Ghastly things I could feel but could not understand were now all around me. I was very frightened. I decided to leave a note in the observation file that I was sick and had to leave. I then intended to run to the car. I’d figure out what to do from the safety of my home.

While I had my head down and my shaking hand was scribbling jerky words in Lucy’s report, the chimp was observing Prudence, Hope, Hunter and Johnny. They had entered the ground-floor walkway, blocking my route to the car. The scientists were conspiratorially huddled and talking. I heard nothing.

Lucy’s hair bristled, she chose two words to express herself, “they vampire”. These electronic words came up in front of me, glowing at me red and loud. I dropped the pencil as I read Lucy’s words. I stood up and followed Lucy’s eye-line. I gazed through the layers of glass at Hunter conferring with his cohorts. Their refracted appearance giving the impression the scientists each had three eyes and a clone glued to their shoulder.

Lucy cowered down, keeping close to the ground she scrambled to the tree and up into her tree house.

My eyes darted back to Lucy’s words, “they vampire”.

The cogs in my brain were spinning, spooling back, speeding through recent memories, editing out key moments to screen to myself again, moments that in their own time had jarred with me, moments that had been clues, that I had pragmatically, or stupidly, brushed aside. I had managed to ignore and skim over these moments by forcing myself to be counter-intuitive. But now, through a montage, I relived the memories and this time their meaning was clear.

Worth Their Weight in Blood is my newly published Darwinian vampire novel.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Worth-Their-Weight-Blood-Carole/dp/1908509015/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326565708&sr=1-3