Afterage

A plague of vampirism has taken over, reducing cities to ghost towns. Chicago, scattered survivors hide, raiding deserted stores for dwindling supplies.A hungry vampire population also struggles for survival as their prey grows scarce, forcing them to capture alive the last remaining humans as breeding stock for the blood farms that will ensure their future. Now a small band of humans makes a desperate last stand against their vampire masters, fighting back with the only weapon that can kill the dead...

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in paperback in 1993, this horror extravaganza shows a first-time novelist laboring to milk a drop of originality from the tapped-out theme of global vampire takeover. The tale is set in Chicago's downtown Loop two years after a vampire uprising has decimated the human population and turned the city into a mausoleum ruled by the undead. These are not the sophisticated killing machines of other vampire apocalypse stories, but a headstrong, impulsive lot who have all but depleted their food supply and must feed sparingly on a small herd of human cattle penned up in the abandoned Merchandise Mart. This sets the stage for a Dirty Dozen scenario in which a troop of guerrilla mortals, most of whom assumed he or she was the last living human, unite to liberate the captives. Navarro (That's Not My Name) skimps on developing significant plot details like how the vampires rose to power and how one mortal has acquired mystic knowledge of the secret for destroying them focusing instead on individual stories of mortal and vampire survival that make up the mosaic narrative. This panoramic approach keeps the tale moving briskly in swift, cinematic cuts, but also ensures that individuals will never be in the spotlight long enough to transcend clich‚ character types: the cowardly collaborator, the martinet enemy lieutenant, the doomed couple who find love among the ruins. Essentially a war adventure with a supernatural twist, this novel is a competent if unremarkable addition to the modern vampire canon. (Nov. 1)forthcoming sequel.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

This is the 10th Anniversary edition of Afterage. Features the original novel, with many special features and additions to this emotional but action oriented horror novel.

From the Inside Flap

It took five days to bring down Chicago, and less than ten to conquer the world. Now the original vampire and her small following struggle to survive in a world reduced to emptiness and ruin by their own savage hunger, a world where humans are as scarce and precious as water in a barren desert. But survive they will, sustained by a small and heavily guarded group of human prisoners, captives whose misery is as boundless as their hatred as they are used for food by the vampires and breeding stock by the vampires ruthless and perverted human accomplice. But life still hides in the shadows of the echoing, deadly streets of Chicago, a few human survivors still cling stubbornly to life and freedom. Scattered, terrified, and suspicious of everything that moves, when they come together if they can come together will they find a way to free their world from the bloody grip of the night creatures who now rule it? Or will they fail and see their species ultimately fade into extinction?

About the Author

Yvonne Navarro spent her youth making up stuff in her head and drawing pictures to go with the stories. As an adult she finally started putting all those imaginary voices on paper, and now she’s had seventy-some stories and thirteen novels published, along with a reference book and a handful of illustrations. The response has been gratifying — in 2002 she won the Bram Stoker Award for her young adult novel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Willow Files, Vol. 2, and in the past she’s done things like win five awards in three categories of the same contest (a first, second and third place sweep in one section). Her novels and stories have won awards from the Illinois Women’s Press Association, the National Press Women’s Association, the Chicago Women in Publishing organization, and others. In her spare time she studies martial arts, and she recently got married (in a cemetery) and finally realized her dream of moving to hot and sunny Arizona.

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