61 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The kind of book that makes reading fun!, June 13, 2008
Upon opening the book I expected certain things. I expected darkness, horror with out equal, strong statements about race and racism, feminism, and mythology. I got all that I had asked for and more.
Blood Colony takes the story of Fana, who was an infant(with power that nobody matched) in the Living Blood, and here she is coming of age. She is lonely, much as I imagine any make shift deity would be, even though she was surrounded by her family and friends. She used her blood to cure illnesses around the world through what she and her family call The Mission, but the US regards her blood as a narcotic, thus it's illegal. Fana and her good friend Caitlin set up a modern day underground railroad in order to fight AIDS and other blood diseases. Glow, the street name for Fana's mystic blood, is the center of controversy and violence around the nation. When Caitlin witnesses a horrific act of violence, she and her dad are gathered by the Immortals(Fana's family) and this causes the two girls to run.
The novel is part road trip, part social commentary, and travels through many different emotions. There are scenes of heartbreaking sadness, gruesome violence, overwhelming passion and everything in between. You can't help but feel bad for poor Fana, who for all of her power, is mostly helpless and unsure of herself, as she and Caitlin try to run from the other Immortals.
Things get creepy, or creepier I should say, when it turns out that Fana's family is not the only group of Immortals who are looking for her, another branch is a religious sect which wishes to kill off man kind and use the Blood to revitalize any they see as worthy and usher in the New Days of religious monarchy, with them as the monarchs.
I absolutely loved The Blood Colony. It was rich, funny, well textured, dark, moody, cynical at times, optimistic at times, and well crafted. The series as a unit is my favorite of any horror series I've read(and I've read a lot). Blood Colony is the kind of book that makes reading fun. It isn't strictly horror, but travels a world between genres comparable to Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
The narrative is brilliantly structured, constantly evolving, full of twists and turns and fast paced.
Oh, and remember how I said it was more than I had expected? The book is hilarious. Okay, some of the humor was specialized, she introduces people who are of my particular religion, and a lot of the humor is very dark and bitter, she mocks peoples racism at points, and all of her characters are real, well thought out people, who occasionally make really stupid mistakes and often get in pretty good sarcastic remarks on the expense of others, especially Caitlin.
I've been a fan of horror for as long as I can remember. Horror has been something that I seemed to grasp firmly, even as a young child. I had read R L Stine's books, sure, and the Scary Stories series, and I watched Tales From The Crypt right after I watched Are You Afraid Of The Dark on snick. By the time I was in the sixth grade I'd been reading Stephen King's books and by high school I thought I was done with reading. I digested horror movies and music with out flinching and since I'd thought I had mastered the horror literary world, I began to notice that horror entertainment doesn't always have much of a point. I would seek out the horror writers and artists who said something I agreed with or was unaware of and became obsessed with Horror with a Point.
One thing I was never aware of, though, was race. I grew up in an extremely mixed community but the vast majority of the horror I was watching(or reading, or listening to) was created by white people, about white people, for white people. Sure, Night Of The Living Dead features an African American actor who does a great job, but there really wasn't anything out there besides that. It never even came up in my mind, seeing as I am white. One day, a few years ago I bought My Soul To Keep by Tananarive Due and was so instantly sucked into the world of African Immortals that I couldn't believe it. The story said a lot of things, used race, American Racism, and created a darker than dark mythology. I was salivating. Then the sequel came out. The Living Blood. Tananarive due killed the hell out of that book. I was in a rush. My world had altered so completely from these exposures, from them I went on to discover other African American writers of horror, sci fi and fantasy and couldn't be happier with the results.
But then I returned to Tananarive Due's world of Immortals. When I had heard that Blood Colony was coming out, I itched for it. I ached for it. One day, it came in the mail. I finished it several days later and it was a journey to behold.
This has gone away from what I intended to be a quick and simple way of expressing my love for a good book, so forgive me please, but read Tananarive Due's Blood Colony, and all of her other books for that matter. They will touch you, make you smile, make you cry, scare you and titillate you. I promise.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
African Immortals trilogy: recommended, July 8, 2008
Due tosses together vampiric creatures [super-strong, super-fast, super-smart, obsessed with blood and immortal: yeah, they're vampires], Christian faith, feminism, fate vs. free will and superheroes. The resultant rich and spicy mixture works. I credit much of her trilogy's power to Due's lean, muscular writing. The prose is quick but compentent in book 1, but it soon improves to swift, economical status by books 2 and 3.
Additionally, Due's themes of moral responsibility make this trilogy especially engrossing. While there are obvious good guys and bad guys in this series, Due's omniscient perpsective combines curiosity and compassion for all characters. She tries to realistically answer the question of how human beings would deal with immortality. The Life Brothers exclude themselves from humanity, perfecting intellectual arts, while Sanctus Cruor, the eugenics nuts, will obliterate human life in order to safeguard the Blood. Meanwhile, Dawit, Jessica and Fana, who spread the Blood as salvation, represent a generous use of immortality. In other words, Due's thesis is that immortality brings out the extremes in people, both the very best and the very worst. Her vampires are all too human, an interpretation of monsters that I find much more compelling than the monsters=aliens portrayal.
Verdict: With a sympathetic cast [including assertive and realistic women, woooo hoooo!], the pacing of a suspense series and a compelling moral exploration that most fantasy trilogies can't hold a candle to, the African Immortals trilogy provides an intelligent and delicious revision of vampire lore.
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