Customer Reviews

Midnight Blue: Sonja Blue Collection

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For anyone interested in dark fantasy, goth themes, and/or what I'd now call the "Vampire Genre", this book is great! If you have read Nancy Collins before, be forewarned that this is a compilation of three novels: Sunglasses After Dark, In The Blood, and Paint It Black. It's frustrating to invest in a new book, only to discover you've read it before! However! Although this book is actually three separate works, they fit together perfectly. Since the huge response to Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, and her subsequent novels, I couldn't get enough of vampire heroes and especially, heroines. Nancy Collins was not only there with a believeable heroine, but one living in the present day. Sonja Blue is tough, vampiric, and very much one to hold a grudge against the Vampire who made her "unlife" what it is today! On a crusade to eliminate the one who took away her human self, she fights a constant battle to hang on to her own humanity. The battle to hang on to her mental equilibrium, and pacify the vampire personality that shares her mind makes her tough but practical, and down to earth, and it's easy to identify with her. The beginning of the book was the only place that might have lost me, and there's my only real critisism. It takes a while to catch on to the plot, but it's worth it to hang in there! Once you get the idea of what's going on, it's smooth reading all the way to the last pages. One of the features that Collins uses in her "darker" reality, is that of creatures such as Ogres, and Werewolves, although it takes a special kind of human, or another "pretender" as she calls it, to know who is human, and what is not. The surroundings of the characters, from goth bars, to cheezy Southern "faith healing" ministries lend a lot to the plots as well. I think my favorite thing that sets Nancy Collins apart from other good authors of dark fantasy/horror, is her ever present dry wit. Tanya Huff is another author who shares this ability to make her heroine leave you laughing at some of her hiliarious descriptions of events, characters, or occasional side comments. Another great thing about this book is the ability to follow Sonja Blue even after the book has been read. I love authors who create characters that make you yearn to see more of them. For those folks who have not encountered her yet, Nancy Collins has several other books and short stories in which Sonja is featured. Fans of the White Wolf Series will also be able to see elements of the "Vampire: The Masquerade" series in the subsequent book by Nancy, A Dozen Black Roses, without sacrificing the quality of her work. Other Sonja Blue books include Darkest Heart, and Dead Roses For a Blue Lady.
Other authors that I enjoy that write dark fantasy and vampiric fiction with recurring main characters include Alice Borchardt, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Barbara Hambly, in addition to Anne Rice and Tanya Huff.

If Buffy is the slayer and Anita Blake is the executioner then Sonya Blue is the vampire terminator! You will get that assumption when you finished the unforgettable epic dark fantasy book chronicling the bloody exploits of one Sonya Blue a young woman who once a rich young heiress by the name of Denise Thorne until she was raped and drained of blood by a vicious vampire by the name of Morgan.Now as Sonya blue she hunts down other vampires hoping to find and destroy Morgan.She must also contend with her alter-ego a sadist demon called the Other that shares her mind and who gains pleasures from killing and pain.In the first book:Sunglasses after dark.You first meet Sonya as she escapes from a mental hospitol and battles a sinister lady televangelist who also is a telepath.She tells you in her own words on how she became a vampire and how she decides to hunt other vampires called pretenders and their human psychic slaves called renfields.The second book:In the Blood sonya with the aid of private eye goes after Morgan.This book gives you more of understanding of Sonya and her terrifying world that invisible to normal humans.A world of vampires,demons, werewolves and succubus.The last book:Paint it Black Sonya finally accepts herself as a vampire as she continues her vendatta against Morgan.Collins has introduces us to unforgettable heroine who is witty and sexy,violent and who still holds our sympathies even after she commits shocking deeds.She also gives a some great characters like private eye-Palmer who agrees to help sonya is her battles and soon regrets it.Anise-the doomed vampire/hybrid who used by Morgan is his attempts to create a master race of vampires.Pangloss-the powerful vampire who made Morgan and now seeks to destroy him.Lethe-the daughter of Anise who transformation will change the world.Collins's Sonya Blue novels are the best dark fantasy since Anita Blake series and filled gruesome scenes of monsters,magic and menace as Sonya takes us guide tour of her frightening world!

...But a great read. This Collection really gets you started in Sonja Blue and her life, or un-life(?). This is a dark series and makes Buffy stories look life the cotton-candy stories they really are. This is great urban fantasy. I have really just recently goten into urban fantasy and and digging thru alot of diffrent books. This one one of the first. Great way to start, I think. I am putting this on my keeper shelf and think you should too.

Let's start with the good things...I loved the plot. I thought that the lead female character was awesome. The book is a breathe of fresh air in the "vampire hunter" genre. However, the writing could use some improvement. There were certain scenes where the writing didn't...flow like it normally did. This is not for the little vamp lovers!! Swearing, sex, and gore are aplenty in the book.
It was a very original book. The concept of "the Other" was very cool. It was an over all good book. If you like Hamliton before she turned porn, get this book. If you want a good vamp book to accompany you on those lonely nights. GET THE BOOK NOW.
(The artwork on the cover is stunning too...but you can't judge a book by its cover now can we?)

The Sonja Blue novels were recommended by a friend with the caution...............it isn't Anne Rice you know. How right she was, this is no glossy, self searching world, Sonja Blue's world is terrifyingly real and it isn't just the vampyre that walks among us but all different shades, wraiths and demons.

Nancy A Collins' writing is exceptionally atmospheric and as much of a monster as she tries to make us believe this vampire killer of her own kin is, you find yourself feeling for this soul so tortured in her destiny. The books are bleak and dark and the violence is clearly defined and graphic, definitely not the best books to fall asleep reading.

As this incorporates the first three novels in the series it is the only place to start, it will leave you begging for more and fortunately there is more. However, if you like your vampires to be beauties in satin and lace then this denim and leather clad harpy will leave you cold outside, and sickened inside.

Not all vampire fanatics will sink their teeth into Sonja Blue. There isn't any romanticism attached to her lifestyle, there is no secret Brad Pitt with fangs fantasy world. Instead, Sonja Blue is the predator of vampires. She hunts people down, she rips them apart with her super-human strength, and then leaves them eviscerated on the floor. The tale is graphic enough to make my stomach turn.

The writing is well-done and unexpected. The author isn't afraid to kill off your favorite characters at inopertune times, because Sonja knows little loyalty or humanity. This book fleshes out her origins and offers insight into the minds of the older vampires.

Overall, it wasn't what I wanted. I was looking for romance, I was looking for scenes of beauty instead of constant scenes of painful death. I wanted a story of a human who became a vampire, not a human who became a monster.

Scattershot. A common thread amongst the reviewers here is the idea these books are "graphic". Are they? Yeah. I suppose. But it's a question of background. Coming from a background of the-gorier-the-better horror movies I was well pleased by the graphic story telling. The younger you are the less the shock value in "graphic" -- it is simply appropriate. Collins vampires are - to llmp in lamely - dangerous predators, not romantic figures.

I think some readers find themselves in for a surprise picking up a series of stories from a female author. The expectation of romance, eroticism and such has been built up by lesser (hehe . . . flame bait) authors. This is the raw stuff of nightmares. God she's good!

185 pages! 185! I could scarcely believe it. I picked up the first story late afternoon and couldn't stop until I'd read the last page shortly before bedtime. She artfully constructed and fully fleshed character after character, giving each such care . . . wow. And, with no remorse, let's each slip in pools of their own blood into oblivion. And, in far fewer pages than most, she creates a stunning new world rife with rich characters and left me ready for more.

That's some strong writing!

I was bothered early by strong parallels between Blue and Blade. Finally I IMDB'd Blade and, yep, the movie came years after the inception of Blue. There must be a connection here but I'd never read about it before. (Google'd and recalled I had heard of a connection here: her publisher White Wolf Games sued the people behind Underworld of all things for similarities. I suppose I may run into those similarities in the other books.)

Sonja Blue is a happy discovery. I'm glad I found her. These are the best vampire books I've read since the unforgetable, inimitable Necroscope books (Brian Lumley, in case you've missed him before now).

This is a very good read for dark fantasy readers. It's true that it is gory and graphic-- but what else would you expect from a vampire hunter? Not exactly a picnic. The story is mostly action-filled, but there is a small bit of romance. The ending of the book is not quite what I expected but is still a great read.

Although the vampires of Collins's seem to be traditional, her books are not. Sonja Blue is half-vampire/vampire slayer trying to find the person who made her. Along the way she confronts both parts of her contradicting personality and the parents that believed her to be dead. If you are a fan of the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, and you want something a little more on edge to read, then these are the books for you.

Sonja Blue is a tough, no-nonsense chick. She is a incredibly strong half-vampire--who slays other vampires. Her human side is Denise Thorne, and her demon side is the Other. Her one goal--one burning revenge--is to kill her maker, the powerful Lord Morgan, who had raped young Denise and left her naked and dying on a crummy London street in 1969. Along the path of her extraordinary story, readers meet unique characters, such as Chaz, her cocky London ex-boyfriend and druggie; Catherine Wheele, a religious fanatic; Pangloss, Morgan's creator and Sonja's "grandfather"; Palmer, a detective-turned felonist-turned Sonja's boyfriend; and Lethe, the beautiful, mysterious vampire hybrid who calls her "Auntie Blue." I just wish that Ms. Collins could continue writing about the escapades of Sonja Blue.