Customer Reviews

Blood Blade (Skinners, Book 1)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The main male, Cole, was a pain to read. Him being easily distracted by anything female was downright annoying. The attempt at romance seemed to be thrown in as an afterthought. I didn't feel anything for the female lead, whatever her name was. She bounced between enigmatic know-it-all to slap-dash teacher.
Dialogue was weak. The story had potential, but I almost think it would have been better if it didn't have anyone talking at all. The new take on the werewolf and vampire goodness was interesting, but not interesting enough for me to care.
Honestly surprised I finished the book. Don't have the inclination to pick up the next one.

People rate this book as average but I liked it a lot. I freely admit that the beginning of the book was more action-driven and creepier than its second half but it was nonetheless really cool. Pelegrimas has a great talent for description - the beasties were really scary, I mean really. The beginning read more like a horror than urban fantasy. Also, I really liked Cole. He was such a cool character, scared but determined to do the right thing, refusing to run and hide, a real unbreakable spirit. I'll be definitely buying the second book in the Skinners series!

From the frozen North to downtown Chicago and to the rural hinterland--who knew there were really monsters among us? Pelegrimas brings a new element to the legends of "things" that go bump in the night. His dark world is inhabited by vampires that are not friendly and werewolves that you pray you never meet face-to-face. The only thing standing between the monsters and humanity are the Skinners-humans who fight them and try to destroy those that want to invade and destroy our lives.
With humor and bloody battles, Pelegrimas kept me turning the pages way past my bedtime. And the end of the book is only the beginning. I can't wait to read the second book in the Skinners series to find out what happens next.

Trina King

I'm not sure why I picked up this book. I usually avoid series books like the plague. I guess seeing it was a horror novel by a first time writer (reading his bio above, looks like I was wrong) helped me overcome my doubts (and the super-pulpy cover promised lots of fun).

Anyhow, I'm glad I picked up the book. The Skinners series is action/horror, very similar to Blade or Underworld. There's not a lot of real originality in Blood Blade, but the book is entertaining nonetheless.

In an opening that is very reminiscent of Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo, video game designer Cole Warnecki decides to take a vacation in the Canadian wilderness when he and his party are attacked by a gigantic creature.

This leads him to a loosely organized group called The Skinners who secretly protect 'the normal world' from vampires, werewolves and assorted supernatural beasties.

While there's nothing especially new here, Marcus Pelegrimas is a very good pulp writer. The book flowed right along, never dragging and not taking itself too seriously. There is a good dose of humor here. At times the book is very funny, though never so slapstick that it hurts the story.

He has a good ear for dialogue which is believable (well, in a T.V. show kind of way) and snappy. Most of the characters are pretty flat, with no real depth or history being given for any of them, but Cole is at least sketched out enough that you can empathize with him. Hopefully the other characters will gain a little more background/motivation in future books.

I do think the author needs to work on his action scenes. It's important that they be well written in a book like this, but I thought that in this book the description of the action was kind of muddy. Also, he never actually described what Cole looked like. I just assumed that he looked like the guy on the cover, but it did bug me as I read the book.

I hope in future books he goes into a little more explanation of how the Skinners work as an organization. It all seemed very vague and chaotic here, though since Cole is sort of brought in while he was under fire, that may have been intentional.

I do have to give Marcus Pelegrimas credit for crafting a unique spin on vampires.

So there's not a lot that's new here, but I did enjoy the book enough to keep reading the series. While it isn't a whole lot more than a distillation of a bunch of stuff we've seen before, the personality of the writing makes it worth a read.

Most of the other reviews give you a good overview of what the book is about, so I will avoid that for the most part. Suffice to say; basically we have an average guy who becomes a monster hunter.

Pelegrimas is a fair writer, but don't expect anything mind blowing. I found a lot of his dialog to be forced. A good comparison would be a video game like (which I suppose goes with Cole's character). It felt like dialog was simply thrown into some of the scenes just as filler.

Another irksome irritant was the plot progression, or rather, how the information to the plot was offered to the reader. You go on to read about Nymars and Full Bloods (Half-Bloods & Mongrels as well), but it takes a good chunk of the book before you really learn anything about them, or what they even are. Cole asks a couple of people several times, and he does not get an answer, they simply beat around the bush. They tell him to wait to ask one person, then that person has left and he has to ask another. When we finally get some info it is a plot dump; everything is thrown in at once rather than building up the info. In fairness, however, you can easily guess what these things are. But you're still left wondering about their background or any details.

Pelegrimas does handle the actions scenes very well. You can get a good sense of what is going on and it draws you in. That combined with his eye for detail offer you a good sense of what is going on. The setting is very well done; you will see an example of this in the opening paragraph (which you can preview above). His writing here forms a great visual. Very well done Mr. Pelegrimas. His characters suffer a bit though. They come across as very flat, both in personality as well as detail. I never found myself really rooting for Cole, simply because I did not know him. We find out that he is a game designer who is a bit strung out and that he has an eye for sexy women, but that is about it. Paige is the same way, she is a beautiful girl who bounces around in character as well (She has to meet Cole and protect him, yet does not care if he leaves / She tells him he should be a skinner and when he agrees she tells him he should sleep on it...). If the author used the same detail he did with the setting on the characters, well, that would be great; not so much in what they look like, but rather in who they are.

So, will you like this book? If your into dark fantasy, then yes, probably. If you're a video game fan, then this will be right up your alley. I could not help but feel like I was watching the story of video game unfold. Considering how the author claims to be a video game fanatic, I could see why. With the excellent focus on details, setting, and action scenes, and less so on plot development and character. This is not a bad thing, but can be a bit discouraging. Not a bad book at all, but average. I will be looking for the second part when it comes out.

Blood Blade, the first installment in the Skinners series by Marcus Pelegrimas, is a solid urban fantasy novel. All of the major elements of this genre -- such as vampires, werewolves, humans fighting them, and a little relationship drama -- are present. The challenge of late has been finding an author who could still make this combination fun to read. Marcus Pelegrimas did just that; he made it fun to read.

Cole Warnecki, our hero, is a computer programmer by trade who has gotten a little bored with his life. He is not the typical sit-behind-a-keyboard-and-do-nothing sort of guy, so he decides to go on an extreme hunting expedition to add some experience and feeling to a new project. The hunting trip goes awry when his group is attacked by an enormous monster. The monster ravages the group; Cole runs for his life. This event provides his entrance into the supernatural.

Pelegrimas creates a workable urban fantasy world that layers well over the reality we live in. I like the fact that Pelegrimas' world is more gritty than seductive, and the bad guys are truly bad. It's a world that passes some of the common-sense tests that make an author's work compelling and interesting rather than silly.

Blood Blade is a fun novel. I didn't find it impossible to put down, but it was good enough to keep my attention all the way through and to convince me that reading the next book would be worth the money. Marcus Pelegrimas has a good base on which to build and I am looking forward to seeing what the next book will add.

While the frightening prologue of Blood Blade made me question if I could handle dipping my toe into the urban fantasy/horror genre, I was pleasantly surprised by this book's creativity, humor, and fast pace.

I found the human characters to be likeable and real, not afraid to show their vulnerability but compelled to put the colorful, supernatural creatures in their place. Pelegrimas set a pace that kept me going and clearly answered my - and the characters' - questions with good timing. His wisecracks and occasional sarcasm kept me entertained. I'm looking forward to the second installment in this series and am eager to see where Pelegrimas takes this ongoing battle!

"Crazy but effective," Walter said with a shake of his head. "That's a Skinner for ya." (p. 278)

I am an avid reader and usually find genre books much to my liking, but I just couldn't even finish this one. I really tried too. I hate to give up on any book! I quit at page 283 because I just gave up trying to enjoy myself. I found that I really didn't care what happened to the characters and a couple of times wished that the Nymar had just bitten them and polished them off. I found the plot s-l-o-w and the dialog pretty much bland although I did like the Prophet character. Sorry, I will not be investing in book 2.

I picked up this gem while shopping for books for my nephew serving in Afghanistan. Those 24 hour duties are awfully long and boring. It seemed like an interesting premise so I wanted to check it out. I couldn't put it down. The action began immediately and got me so hooked I read it in one day. Now I see from some of the other reviews that people thought it got boring after this but I disagree. In any series there has to be some level of character development so you understand their motives. This first book got me interested in wanting to know more about the supernatural creatures in the Skinner's world. It also made me want to know more about the MEG network and the other Skinners. I say give this book a try. I know I'm ready to read more in the series.

As a hardcore vampire and werewolf fan I was kind of disappointed with Twilight. In an attempt to get away from that depressing thing they called a vampire, I hesitantly picked up this book. The cover kind of threw me for a loop but the back looked interesting so I bought it anyway. Man was I in for a surprise. Pelegrimas redefined what makes a werewolf and vampire and gave a reason for things being the way they were. I loved Cole and Paige and the way they played off each other and every turn in the book has something more to keep you reading. I absolutely adored this book and, almost shamefully, I admit to scaring a few of my friends when I freaked over something going on in the book. I was completely enamored with the book and I still love it and share it with many of my friends that read the same kind of works. Excellent writing and it makes you want to keep reading if only to figure out how Cole will keep himself from getting killed in the oncoming chapters.