Dead Roses for a Blue Lady [Hardcover]

Nancy A. Collins (Author), Stanley Wiater (Compiler), Stephen R. Bissette (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her debut novel, Sunglasses After Dark (1989), no-nonsense nosferatu Sonja Blue is a punk vampire vigilante with a Clint Eastwood swagger who shows up the sensitive vampire antiheroes of most dark fantasy as refugees from a fern bar. The commanding figure she cuts in three follow-up novels is only occasionally on display in these seven short stories (three original to the volume), the majority of which read like outtakes from longer works. "Cold Turkey" actually was incorporated into the third novel, Paint It Black, but it offers a satisfying example of the series' hard-boiled appeal with its chronicle of Sonja's struggle to repress "the Other," the ravenous vampire ego that lurks behind her omnipresent mirrorshades and terminally threatens her efforts at anonymous coexistence with humans. Other stories are less generous in imagination, overworking vampire rape imagery, yanking Sonja onstage belatedly to bat cleanup and, in the case of "Knifepoint," avoiding her appearance altogether. At least one is near-perfect, though: "Vampire King of the Goth Chicks," in which Sonja exposes a vampire faker in the Goth subculture, perfectly balances graveyard humor with Sonja's self-conscious disgust with her own vampirism and her seething contempt for deluded vampire wannabes who think being undead is "all black leather, love bites, and tacky chrome jewelry." Though Collins is in full command of her material and always makes the gore seem to matter, this book is only for Sonja's blood simple fans.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The author of the popular Sonja Blue novels here presents all of her heroine's short stories, prefacing them with an interview in which she discusses the origins and popularity of the character, a vampire who hunts her own kind. The stories proper include "Cold Turkey," in which a young man, Judd, pursues Sonja romantically and tragically brings out her "other"--the part of her that is a predatory vampire. In "Tender Tigers," Sonja encounters the stepdaughter of an ogress and determines to free the girl and her enslaved father from the ogress' grasp. "Variations on a Theme" borrows a bit from the popular graphic-novel series The Crow; in it Sonja discovers two murdered lovers, one of whom has been changed into a revenant to avenge his dead lover. These absorbing stories, half of which are debuting in this collection, are dark and introspective, and show just why Sonja Blue is popular. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Center for African Studies; Limited edition (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892300079
• ISBN-13: 978-1892300072
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,069,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nancy A. Collins is the author of numerous horror, dark fantasy & comics stories. A native of Arkansas, she currently resides in Cape Fear with her Significant Other and their Boston Terrier, Chopper.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The continuing adventures of Sonja Blue.-, December 18, 2002

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (Hardcover)

"When you keep the hours that I do, you often find yourself in other people's stories."

-Sonja Blue

With the exception of "Knifepoint," which takes place before she was "born," and "Cold Turkey," which provides telling insight into her "otherness," the words above perfectly capture the tenor of the remaining stories in this collection, which feature Nancy Collins' vampiric vampire killer, Sonja Blue, as a cynical, world weary adventurer, who, when she's not hunting her own kind, is cleaning up her little corner of the world, a la Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name." In "Tender Tigers," she rescues a child from her abusive stepmother, an ogre; In "Vampire King of the Goth Chicks," she gives a vampire wannabe his comeuppance; "Variations on a Theme" finds her in James O'Barr's "Crow" universe; "Some Velvet Morning" features her in her "angel of vengeance" mode, hunting down one of the oldest of her kind; finally, in "The Nonesuch Horror," she teams up with the werewolf sheriff of a remote western town to rid the hamlet of an unwelcome visitor.

Always the pro, Collins makes each of these pieces work, milking her themes and situations for all they're worth. Doing so, she delivers a handful of solid entertainments that should inspire longstanding fans to revisit her worthy Sonja Blue novels, and those new to her work to sample them for the first time.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great stories, but collection lack cohesive feel, November 9, 2004

By 

Emily Flippin Maruna "The Handmade Experiment" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dead Roses for a Blue Lady: A Sonja Blue Collection (Paperback)

I fell in love with the character, Sonja Blue, in Collins's MIDNIGHT BLUE, so finding this collection was very exciting for me. For the uninitiated, Sonja Blue is an unhappy and unstable vampire who has dedicated her afterlife to killing vamps and other monsters. She's tough, stronger than most vamps because she can walk in daylight, and completely punk rock. But she has a dark side, the `other', who is like a split personality, appearing and creating chaos in Sonja's otherwise orderly existence.

Nancy Collins is a great writer. She really takes you into the story and makes you care for the characters. The only reason I'm not giving DEAD ROSES five stars is because I thought this collection wasn't as cohesive as it could've been. It was more like reading a file of journal entries on Sonja, than stories that took you from point A to point B. If you are new to Collins and Blue, I would suggest reading MIDNIGHT BLUE first, just so you can get a better feel for what's going on.

If you like vamps, comics, punk rock, strong women, monsters, good writing, or all of the above, you should pick up this book. You won't be sorry.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Silver Threads Among The Graves, August 22, 2004

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dead Roses for a Blue Lady: A Sonja Blue Collection (Paperback)

Nancy Collins may not have originated Southern punk vampire stories (if you will admit that such a thing exists) but she has played a key role in the development of the genre. Her narratives are more pithy and less meandering than Poppy Brite and Caitlin Kiernan (who is heir and grand master to all of them). Sonja Blue is in many ways a comic book style character. Made a vampire unwillingly, full of anger, she has set about destroying the monsters of the world. The monsters like her.

She is conflicted struggling much like a dark Angel to keep from giving into the evil that has set up a home within her, she lurks on the edges of society defending it against the predators, even as she wonders whether it is worth saving. There isn't a lot of hope in Sonja Blue. Even in Nonesuch, the longest story in this collection, the prospect of a society where pretenders and humans can live together is poisoned by the knowledge that it is a flower in the desert, and not a pretty one.

For the most part these tales tell of Sonja Blues quirky kind of justice which sometimes destroys a monster lurking on the street and at other times shatters the fragile beauty of old death. The narrator is sometimes Sonya, sometimes another character, and sometimes Collins herself. Because the book is drawn partially from existing storys and part from new material, the writing style seems a bit inconsistent. Collins remains a matter-of-fact writer throughout, rarely getting lost in excessive prose.

I found the book half satisfying. It falls short of some of Collins other work (Sunglasses After Dark and In The Blood, for example). It you are looking for the best introduction to Collins' work try Midnight Blue, which collects all the early Sonja Blue material. This collection is a bit more for already made fans, who can tolerate the unevenness to get to the juicy bits.