Book: Vampire$, by John Steakley
Genre: Legalese
Themes: copyright, content reuse, lawyers
Comps: The Berne Convention, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act
Representative quote: "This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental."
Page: iv
While it's not uncommon to joke about the legal trade as being blood-drinkers of some sort or another (cannibals, leeches, mosquitoes, ticks, bedbugs, lampreys, torpedo slugs, moths, bats, demons, etc.), to title a book of legal boilerplate Vampire$--be sure to note the dollar sign in place of the S--leaves little doubt as to the author's impression of the barristerial profession.
Still, besides those few barbs, what the book contains is typical, perhaps even banal (please be sure to pronounce this buh-nahl, and not so that it rhymes with "anal"--we don't need even more jokes about what lawyers do to opposition and clients alike) legalese template material: publisher addresses, mass market printing data, registered trademarks, ornament design notes, publisher's notices (see the representative quote), and so on. It is in almost all respects so bland and unoriginal, commonplace isn't a generic enough word. Honestly, it aspires to even reach trite.
Take for example, "If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property." The book has a cover, so it wasn't stolen, and the warning is unnecessary. Contrariwise, a smart thief would remove not only the cover but also page iv, deleting any indication the book might be hot property. Regardless, it's a paradox, and as security systems go, totally pointless.
The lone exception in the entire work is an author's note at top: "This Felix is no other Felix. This Jack Crow is no other Jack Crow." How can this be, you ask? Is there really another Felix? Additionally therewithal another Jack Crow? Our tireless research department comes through: In 1984, Steakley published his first novel, Armor, which features two protagonists, named Felix and Jack Crow, respectively. To which I can only say, "Bwuhhhh?!!!?!" I mean, who does that? What sort of author, what sort of demented, tortured, creatively inspired soul, a living, breathing instance of the most imaginatively dynamic force in the universe, can write two books in a lifetime and not be able to come up with four different names in total for his four main characters, instead doubling down on two of each? That would be like your (assuming, for a second that "you" are a male, and are named George) having five sons and naming all five of them George, after yourself. Inconceivable, is what that is.
Final Rating: 4/5 bookmarks. As an example of functional legalese it is exemplary in the highest degree. Only the odd aside about an author's creative failure of nomenclature prevents this work from being a paragon of its type.
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