So, I had to take a break during Death's End and read something a little lighter. The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant was a shockingly funny book when I read it a year or two back and--despite never seeing it advertised, or reviewed, or talked about anywhere since then--I checked to see if there was another one in the series. And there is! (Three so far, in fact: I'm going to read Bloody Acquisitions next!)The premise of these books is very simple: what if a nerdy, introverted accountant got (semi-accidentally) turned into a vampire? The good ole revenge-of-the-nerds style plot is tried but--in this case, at least--also true. What sells the books are two things. First, Hayes's commitment to follow-through on the basic premise. We don't just get a vampire accountant, we get a vampire accountant who takes pains to get certified as a CPPA (certified paranormal public accountant) and plots that revolve around legal technicalities when it comes to disposition of sentient real-estate. Now that's follow-through, and it takes the premise from being kind of a cheesy joke to an actually interesting, fleshed-out urban fantasy landscape. Second, the solid characterization and relationships. One of my favorite things, for example, is that the villain from the first book (a precocious necromancer who brought back his dead best friend as an unusually articulate zombie) is one of the inner circle of protagonists in the second book. Turning enemies into friends (after you defeat them) is both funny and warm.The books are written in an extremely episodic style, as a series of interlocking stories that basically have self-contained plots but also advance larger plot arcs. The larger plots stories don't always work continuously, however. For example, in one of the stories in this book someone (I won't say who) is chosen by the Sword of the Unlikely Champion and we got a whole plotline about testing that individual out to see if they can wield the sort without massive collateral damage. Turns out, they can! So there's definitely going to be some kind of major plot point where they wield that sword against bad guys, right? Well, probably, but the story after that made no mention of it whatosever, and in fact at the end of the book we still have no idea where that particular plotline is going to go.I suppose that might bug some people. It definitely doesn't read as a single, cohesive novel, but for me it works just fine. It's a lot like binge-watching your favorite show on Netflix. Each episode has to stand alone, but you still get the payoff from multi-episode and even multi-season story lines. There were several hints about those in this book (not just the sword, other stuff too) and it's easily enough to keep me interested and reading.As a final note, I checked out Drew Hayes' site and there's almost no reference whatsoever to this series. You can find the first two of the books for sale, but the third isn't even listed there. (It's on Amazon and Goodreads, however.) Instead, everything is geared towards what I guess is his main series (Super Powereds) and then random other stuff (like "Authors and Dragons" which is a "A Podcast Where A Party Of Fantasy Authors Try To Make It Through A Game Of Pathfinder Without Dying"). It just reminds me again of how sometimes the things that an author likes / wants to write / believes are going to be great and the things that an audience actually wants to read are totally different. Reminds me of Jim Butcher and his Codex Alera books (like Furies of Calderon .) I have basically zero interest in typical high fantasy (knights, horses, elves, and basically everything else you'd expect from D&D and every other wannabe since Tolkien) so for years and years I ignored the little author's notes he placed in the Dresden File books until--finally--I hopped over and read the entire Codex Alera series. And... didn't really like it at all. There were massive editing problems (e.g. repeated paragraphs and obvious typos you wouldn't expect from a traditionally published book) and--while the spark of Butcher genius was there--I just couldn't get into them. Contrast that with how Butcher talks about the Dresden Files. Storm Front , the way he tells the story, was basically written to try and prove to a writing teacher that following all the formulas was dumb. Instead, Butcher ended up with a beloved fantasy series on his hands that--as the gaps between installments gets larger and larger--his audience can't help but suspect he wishes he had never started. Or, if that's overstating it, at least secretly resents for being more successful than his actual first love.Who knows? But Butcher is basically stuck with Harry Dresden now, because millions of fans have embraced it in a way that they never did with the Codex Alera books. (His most recent escape attempt, The Aeronaut's Windlass , is much more promising for all concerned.)I wonder if something similar is going on with Drew Hayes. I have zero interest in super hero stories. I've tried Brandon Sanderson 's Reckoners series (starting with Steelheart ) and I read one or two of Peter Clines 's Ex-Heroes (and one of the sequels, I think) and even a story or two from the George R. R. Martin -edited Wild Cards and the feeling I have with all of them is exactly the same: it's like eating off-brand versions of your favorite cereal. You can see what they're going for, but it's really just like a bad imitation of something good. I think the primary problem is that all the good abilities are taken by iconic characters. When Marvel or DC have to start going down-list to find superheroes, things go downhill really, really fast. When you're going even further off-brand than that, it's almost invariably kind of sad and pathetic. On top of that, all the really major superhero plotlines (e.g. "with great power comes great responsibility" or "weaknesses/imperfections are what make us human") have been done to death already. So, if the comparison isn't off-brand cereal, I guess it would instead have to be those direct-to-DVD movies that imitate the titles and cover art of real hits and do nothing at all except muck up your Netflix search results when you're trying to find a legitimate book.On the other hand: what do I know? Maybe Drew Hayes's "Super Powereds" series is selling like hotcakes. (I hope it is, because I wish success and fulfillment for all authors.) All I know is that it's odd, having so much interest in one thing an artist has done and so little interest in something else they've done, and yet feeling that their priorities are exactly the opposite of my tastes.Oh well. All I can do is try to get more people to read about Fred the Vampire Accountant and hope that the sales #s are good enough that Hayes decides to give us all a few more. You can do your bit to help! Buy one today and give it a read!