Fascinatingly enough, Agyar is about a vampire, but it never once uses the word 'vampire' or any variation, or anything which even insinuates vampiracy. At all. Pretty neat trick, eh? Initially, I was going to call it a vampire novel. But it isn't, really. In a vampire novel, you expect supernatural powers to take center stage in the telling. (See Laurell K Hamilton. Ugh.) That isn't the case, here.

Agyar tells the story of one Jack Agyar who has been called to a dreary college town in Ohio by his sire. Apparently his sire has been up to something, and wants Jack to take the fall for it. Initially, Jack is OK with this, as he knows he can't resist his sire. As the novel progresses, Jack decides he'd rather not go quietly into the night. (Or is that 'day'?)

The whole story is presented as things that have been typed (by Jack) on an old typewriter he has found. It makes for a nice device, as entire days can pass between paragraphs, as Jack becomes distracted and has to return to his typing at a later date.

The premise here is that the Seelie and Unseelie Courts ('Good' and 'Evil' fairies) have decided to have a little fight. Problem is, they're all quite immortal and under normal circumstances, cannot die. Solution? Find themselves a mortal and stick him or her on the battle field like a magical chess piece. The Seelie choose a musician, who'd rather not be chosen.

Ok, I liked the book, but I probably would've liked it a whole lot more if I got all the music and rock references. At one point, the aforementioned musician puts out an ad looking to hire some other musicians. Part of the ad text includes the warning 'no metal'. Well. I'm metal. My only exposure to 70's or 80's rock is Blue Öyster Cult, which isn't exactly quite as mainstream as the crowd being addressed here.

Further, the plot uses the captured-falls-for-captor and young-woman-outsmarts-ancient-evils clichés. I can't actually come up with anything good to say. Which is depressing, because I liked the book! Oh well.

Oh, the boring, flat characters. If the book hadn't been told in the first person, I don't think I would've even been able to keep track of the main character. The whole nature of the Special Forces is utterly at odds with the supposed justification for only recruiting the elderly. Things moved along, at least; it only took me about 4 hours to finish reading. Fair sized print, with what seems to be a suspicious amount of space between the lines.