Vampire Apocalypse

The Vampire Apocalypse series is a trilogy of books by Derek Gunn published by Permuted Press. It depicts the conquest of the world by vampire forces and the attempt to liberate the world from their control.

The drying up of the world's oil resources leads to the fabled End of Days. Technology stagnates and communities grow ever more insular. With communication between cities lost and attention turned inward, the vampires rise from the shadows where they have survived for centuries and sweep across the globe.

By the time word spreads it is far too late and Vampires enslave humanity and keep them in walled cities to breed. The Vampires are masters of the darkness but maintain control by day through the use of Thralls -- humans who have been bitten but have not yet crossed over, and whose inhuman lusts make daylight as terrifying as night.

Three books have been published so far in the series. A World Torn Asunder, Descent, and Fallout. Not to be confused with Vampire Apocalypse as a variant of Zombie Apocalypse. It is now being turned into a graphic novels and has been optioned for a movie.

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Tropes used in Vampire Apocalypse include:

• Action Girl: Sandra, Dee Ratigan.
• After the End: Ironically, the human race is ruined before the vampires take over.
• Exclusively Evil: When you're transformed into a vampire, you become evil.
  • Word of God claims that it's also due to the extreme lengths of time vampires live mixed with overwhelming hunger. This doesn't explain the drastic personality changes that some characters undergo when they change, however.
• Ax Crazy: Vampires go this after too much exposure to serum-tainted blood.
  • Von Kruger, full stop.
• Badass Abnormal: A villainous example in the rebellious Thralls. They have three times the strength of normal humans, even if they're much weaker than the vampires they fight.
• Badass Normal: The entire human army is this, since they're explictly fighting vampires and their superhuman servants.
• Bad Boss: Vampires routinely kill Thralls who fail. It gets to the point that a large number of Thralls revolt, despite being theoretically unable to do so due to mind control.
• Being Evil Sucks: Vampires seem to be pretty miserable, living in a decaying world over humans.
  • They oddly don't realize this, instead blaming their problems on other factors.
• Body Horror: Some vampires can turn into truly disgusting alternate forms.
  • The transformation into a vampire also qualifies. Unlike in other media depictions, it is not the least bit romantic. It turns you into what is essentially a walking corpse.
• Black and Black Morality: The Vampire Civil War and the Thrall rebellion.
• Black and Gray Morality: Humans vs. Vampires seems to be Black and White morality. It's actually much more complex than that due to the fact humans are torn between their own interests and the greater good.
• Crapsack World: Pretty obviously so given it was slowly becoming a dystopian nightmare BEFORE the vampires took over.
  • It was originally a Crapsack World, then It Got Worse.
• Dead Little Sister: Steele suffers from one of these. An actual little sister in this case.
  • Bizarrely, he actually gets another.
• Defector From Decadence: Steele decides serving vampires isn't worth it.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The world suffers a massive oil shortage, resulting in humans turning against one another in the resulting fear and paranoia, a group of charismatic yet ruthless figures proceed to take over the planet in the crisis.
  • The leader of the political opposition is named Regan.
    • Also, there's another evil human character named Phelps.
• Enemy Civil War: The main plot from Descent. It is secretly engineered by Steele and Harris.
  • The third book continues it with The thralls rising up against the vampires.
• Evil Counterpart: William Carter to Harris.
• Fate Worse Than Death: Steele
• Fantastic Racism: The vampires suffer from this, perhaps understandable given what they are. It's shocking when you realize the Thralls consider human beings as different from themselves as vampires. Especially given Thralls are, for all intents and purposes, human.
• Fridge Brilliance: All the Ax Crazy behavior of the vampires is motivated by the fact they're being slowly poisoned by the Serum.
• The Hero: Harris might as well have this stamped on his head. Ironically, he's completely unaware of it.
• Hope Spot: The revelation the vampires are dying from the Serum tainted blood. It only means that they will wipe out all of humanity in a blood frenzy if left unchecked.
• Human Resources: Obviously, the vampires consider the entire human race this.
• It Got Worse: A lot of the series can be summarized this way, despite our heroes best efforts.
• Killed Off for Real: Quite a few characters.
  • Dee Ratigan and Steele are the big ones in the second novel.
• La Résistance: The human forces against the vampire.
• Manipulative Bastard: Von Richelieu aspires to Magnicent Bastardry but doesn't quite get there, instead being just slightly better than the majoriy of vampires out there.
• Morality Chain: Steele's little sister was this, her death causing him to go over to serve the enemy. He gets better.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Regan. Phelps.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Are apparently a combination of scientific and mystical properties, defeated by a combination of chemistry and holy items. They are also capable of transforming into horrific monsters.
• The Quisling: Thralls are human beings who have agreed to serve vampires.
• Shout-Out: An amusing one comes in the third book where a group of young rebel children call themselves Wolverines.
• Smug Snake: Nero.
  • Also Regan.
• The Starscream: William Carter.
• Strawman Political: Partially averted with Regan. While obviously a complete idiot, Derek Gunn resists the temptation to make him completely useless and evil.
• Terminally Dependent Society: A major theme of the novels. The vampires are poisoning their own food supply with drugs.
  • It's also slowly driving them insane before killing them.
  • Another bit is the fact that humans were apparently meant to be this due to their relationship with oil, at least Pre-Apocalypse.
• Vampire Apocalypse: Naturally.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Regan. It's arguable that Harris, the hero, has a higher opinion of him han he deserves.
• Villain World: Vampires rule the Earth, humans are cattle.
• The Virus: Vampirism turns you evil.
  • Almost equal is the Serum. The Serum makes human beings dull and lifeless automatons.
• Your Vampires Suck: The entire point of the series, really. Word of God claims that the series was written in response to vampires being treated as romantic and tragic figures as opposed to ruthless evil monsters.
  • In-universe, vampirism sucks. In addition to becoming immediately a psychopath, you can't enjoy sex, can't enjoy food, start to smell, and become obsessed with feeding to the exclusion of all other things.