A Dozen Black Roses: Revised Edition (Sonja Blue) [Kindle Edition]

Nancy A Collins (Author)

Book Description

In the urban No Man's Land known as Deadtown two equally matched vampires bosses are locked in a cold war: the foppish drug kingpin Lord Sinjon, and the brutal Lord Escher, who traffics in black magic as well as firearms. Things heat up when the punk vampire/vampire-slayer Sonja Blue arrives, and she begins to play the rival factions against each other in order to cleanse Deadtown of its undead inhabitants once and for all.

Originally published as a cross-over between Sonja Blue and White Wolf's popular Vampire: The Masquerade RPG, this revised edition  of A Dozen Black Roses has been rewritten to excise all mention of White  Wolf's World of Darkness gameplay, and includes new scenes not in the print edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Welcome to Deadtown, capital of the nation's undead. Here, the only humans you will meet are the misfits of American society, surrounded by a legion of gangbangers and their vampire bosses. Collins (Dark Destiny: Proprietors of Fate, White Wolf, 1996) is a master at bringing the ancient vampire myth slamming into the 20th century. In her latest novel, a powerful younger vampire, Esher, is plotting to overthrow Deadtown's established ruler, Sinjon, and become the new crime boss in town. As the two vampires vie for control of the city, they are unaware that they have something much more deadly to fear than each other. Enter Sonja Black, any vampire's worst nightmare, dressed in steel-tipped boots and a leather jacket. She has an unquenchable thirst for blood, but she's not after humans. Trapped between the world of the living and the undead, she has sworn to make the vampires pay for trying to make her one of them. Assisted by an aging hippie and his five-year-old sidekick, she plans to destroy both Esher and Sinjon and their bands of loyal bloodsuckers. Sonja leaves a wake of destruction in her path, and it looks as if even Deadtown may not survive her. This book is not for the squeamish, as gore and guts fly through the pages, thanks to Collins's graphic descriptions. It is recommended, however, for libraries with vampire collections.?Erin Cassin, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"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." --Publisher's Weekly on A Dozen Black Roses
 
"Nancy A. Collins pretty much invented the punk vampire thing in Pop
literature...Collins created the mother of all leather-jacketed, blood
sucking bitches in anti-heroine Sonja Blue..." --Seconds Magazine
 
"Some might call [Sonja Blue] insane, but we just call her the latest in
killer cool." --Film Threat Magazine
 
"The Sonja Blue novels have stood as one of the high-water marks of hip
modernist pop-cultured vampire literature." --LOCUS

Product Details

• File Size: 630 KB
• Print Length: 276 pages
• Publisher: Biting Dog Publications (November 20, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006BADP3M
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,192 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars She's Back! October 5, 2001

By Rodney Powell VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Sonya Blue, Nancy Collins's unforgettable vampire slaying heroine returns in this very violent and gripping adventure.This time Sonya who is only known as The Stranger enters the sinister
city of Deadtown.Deadtown is the bloody battleground of two competing vampire lords, Sinjon who has ruled the city for almost two centuries and Esher the utterly ruthless younger vampire who wants the city for himself.They both traffic in drugs and use psychotic gangbangers as their armies.Sonya befriends Cloudy, a aging hippy and Ryan a young boy who's mother is controlled by Esher. Sonya decides to detroy both vampires, who are called Kindred in the novel.This short novel is filled with scenes of very graphic violence and visceral action sequences.The characters like the brave boy, Ryan are also very well drawn and the villians such as Esher and his sadistic vampire henchwoman, Decima also are memorable.My own complain of this book is that is really is a dark fantasy remake of two films: Yojimbo and Clint Eastwood's spaghatti western fistful of dollars.Once I knew the similarities between the book and those movies I guessed what would happen next in the plot and I was right all of the time.If u seen these movies you will remember what does happen in the novel as well.But other than that be prepared as Sonya Blue puts you under her spell as she puts the vampires dead under for good!

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars This book sucked April 28, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

First off I want to say that I'm a Nancy Collins fan. The other Sonja Blue books are excellent. But this one just sucks. The characters are all lame and flat, the plot is cliche, the writing is spotty, the motivations weak, the organization poor. It's VERY obvious that she just slapped it together due to the crossover deal with White Wolf. She deals poorly with the various White Wolf clans and terminology, and her "personal" vampire mythos doesn't square at all with the White Wolf world. There are lots of glaring inconsistencies.

Don't waste your money on this garbage. Read the other Sonja Blue books.

4.0 out of 5 stars Whee! July 26, 2012

By Michele Lee

Format:Kindle Edition

Part of my initial love of A Dozen Black Roses was that it came out when I was LARPing and so I gleefully imagined some of the characters I had to deal with getting into a show down with Sonja Blue. Now Biting Dog has released a White Wolf-free version of A Dozen Black Roses, which makes it less like a shoe horned effort to keep a star writer like Collins while also pushing the White Wolf RPG line, and more like an actual Sonja Blue novel.

Collins' vampire hunting vampire Sonja Blue was one of my first loves in horror (now though it might fit more in Urban Fantasy). She's different, from her creation story, to her split personality, to her punk rock attitude. And Collins' style is different as well. Known for loving descriptions of ultra violence Collins easily keeps up in a genre that seems to be boy territory. In fact Sonja shaking up the old boy's network is a key theme in this book, making it all the more fun. Sonja faces down the two vampire lords of Deadtown, vicious vampires who barely even notice humans as pawns in their quest for power and personal indulgence. And thought she's not exactly a superhero she's definitely the good guy come to make the (other) vampires pay.

Highly recommended for public and private collections, here's your chance to read the book as it should have been, without rules and dice and power gamers.

Contains: violence, language, drug use, rape

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.