book review and mini rant

I picked up two books from the library the other day, one is The Child Thief by BROM, the other is The Fallen Blade (the first in a trilogy, just published this year) by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.   So far, I've finished Child Thief and I'm about halfway through Blade.  Not sure if I'm going to finish it, though.  More about that later. 

Child Thief is a modern interpretation of Peter Pan that I actually quite enjoyed.  It incorporates not only the various legends of Peter Pan, but also old mythologies of the horned god, the tree of life, and Avalon.  Fairly well written, but there's a couple points I'd like to discuss if anyone else reads this.

Blade is actually similar in style (I thought), at least as far as the characters go.  Can we talk about morally ambiguous?  It's a political novel (as in: everyone is trying to further themselves and manipulate everyone else in order to be the ruler) set in 1400's Venice. 

Rant time!
BUT, I'm a little bit distressed at the use of three of the (currently) most common mythical creatures in each of the books.  Child Thief as the zombies- they don't call them that, but let's think here: slow, shambling walk, living long after they should be dead, generally not terribly smart...  Yup, sounds like zombies to me!  Blade has werewolves and a vampire.  Nothing against wolves and vamps.  I just wish that the pretty boy w/ weird powers could be something else for a change.  A demon maybe? 

meh.  anyhoo, sorry if is sounds weird.  I wrote between playing a game...