Robert's Vampire is one of if not the most historically thorough vampire deck. It goes into not only how Stoker's novel fits the Tarot structure, but also touches on real life figures who were influenced by the vampire mythos. His book covers everything from the earliest recounts of bloodsucking creatures in mythology right up to popular depictions in Buffy/Angel in present day (and probably would have included Twilight and Vampire Diaries had it been made today). He also shows in the deck how the differences in the novel and in the popular Francis Ford Coppola movie influenced popular thought. I've never hesitated to read Robert's books. As far as themed decks his companion books are among the best I've ever read on many of their subjects and Vampire is no exception.
I believe Robert disliked this deck out of all of his because he had the least creative control over it with St. Martins Press dictating a lot of parameters. It's the only one he made with them before he returned to his own Hermes publishing company with the Alchemical Renewed and Sevenfold Mystery. I'm not sure what caused this particular deck of his to be the least successful; perhaps since vampires were popular they printed many copies of this deck expecting it to sell well but it didn't. But don't let that detract you from getting it; it's really a gem among vampire decks for the sheer volume of information.
The drawbacks are strictly physical. The cards are larger than the usual RWS and larger than Robert's usual decks at 3.5 x 5.28 inches making them difficult to shuffle. The corners aren't rounded, making them jab your hands when handling (appropriate, I suppose, for vampires!). It's quite an unwieldy deck and I find I'm better off just cutting the deck and pulling top cards then replacing them at random, rather than shuffling.
