Customer Reviews

Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I'm on a zombie book kick right now and want to read what people rate as the best. DL Snell tried to be a literary genius by making each descriptive sentence into some metaphor or simile. I'm an educated person and I can grasp and understand these, but it does require one to think, thus making it a slower read.

Another complaint is that each chapter is about 3-4 pages long. It would seem that instead of trying to link each scene change with some words, he'd rather just end the chapter.

Complaints aside, it is a gruesome tale of vampirism and their quest for survival. I just wish the author would use common language instead of trying to come across as a pompous know-it-all. I was misguided by the rest of the reviews, thinking this would be a great and easy read. I was wrong, sadly.

I tried. I really did.

I can't remember the last book I stopped reading before finishing it, but this one, I couldn't make past 50 pages. Actually, 48 pages. 8 Chapters.

I tried, but I just can't read it anymore.

First, I hate to give bad reviews, and will only do when a book or movie really deserves it. And this one does.

When I bought the book, I had high hopes. Zombies AND Vampires. What could be better? I love zombie fiction and have read a ton of zombie books over the past few years, some good, some great, some awesome, but this is the first stinker that I've read....or attempted to read.

My complaints are similiar to the other criticisms of this book. One, it's way too over descriptive, to the point I had to re-read a few things because I wasn't sure what the hell the author was talking about. Being descriptive is good, but being overly descriptive in every sentence of every paragraph on every page is not just annoying, but very distracting. Instead of adding to the story, it takes away, and makes it a hard read.

Second, instead of a horror story, the book comes off as a poor romance novel. There is very little in the way of action or zombies in the first 50 pages, but plenty of overly described sex and masturbation that adds zero to the story. It seems the only reason all the sex was in the book is it must've got the author all hot and bothered writing it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have the same effect on the reader.

And, 50 pages in, all I know that's going on is one vampire wants to go someplace else, and some woman kinda would like to escape, but doesn't want to leave her pregnant sister. Not much of a story to keep you hooked, but a whole lot of meaningless filler.

I probably won't try reading this book again, since I won't have that 'I wonder how it ended' question lingering, since there really wasn't much of a plot in the first 8 chapters.

Maybe the book gets better, and I'm missing out. Somehow I doubt it though.

Length:: 0:58 Mins

I am new to science fiction and I loved this book. I was hooked after the first few pages and couldn't put it down. I thought it was going to be like all the other Vampire stories, but I was pleasantly surprised. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. I hope to read more of D.L Snell's books in the future. Keep up the good work.

Many forms of literature have established that a world thick with the undead would be bad place for the living. Staying alive is the biggest problem that is faced, but many other types of conflict also litter the playing field. Thes as well as other forms of media have also established that a world thick with vampires might not be the best playground to play kick the can in, to perhaps go out in the dark in, to place much hope when looking to the sky and begging for wishes in, or to really do much more than to abandon all hope within.
And a world rich with both of these things showing themselves steadily; that's not exactly a place where people would want to be.
In Roses of Blood on Barbwire that's exactly what you find yourself looking at; humanity has found itself in the midst of a plague of undeath and, caught between the crosshairs of slow-witted corpses and the type that create less bumps in the night and aren't something you can outsmart with barricades and using chickenwire, they find themselves a depleting commodity. This leads to plans of defending a island of bipedal food because a vampire has got to eat, to breeding the humans back and more, and then there's something far worse than that.
Humanity needs a hug.

When I first picked up this book, I knew nothing about it save the tagline that melded "zombies, vampires, and Lovecraftian" into the same happy camp and that brought a tear to my eye in the porcess. Being a fan of the first two and a lover of the mythos, I really wanted a connection and I really wanted a book that gave me what those few words could perhaps hand me.
And it delivered; o did it ever, and big time.

Before I read the book, I knew the author's name because of something he had written as an introduction. After I read the first four (4) pages, the introduction he did on his own terms with his own characterizing voice, I found myself walking through a finely-tuned sonata of wording that totally redefined the image I had of Snell. Not only did Snell understand how to pace his book so it would give us characters and keep us on our toes, but he also understood that he had a grand idea in the palm of his hand and he scripted that plight living within the plight beautifully. This meant you had to understand the humans involved, the vampires involved, the way the zombies fit in, and everything else that mingled in the entrails existing from cover to cover.
And, at the end of the read, I thought that D.L. Snell was a name worthy of the things he promised.

If you worry because you (1) don't know the author, (2) think horror is a tired genre, (3) fear the word Lovecraftian because it gets mistreated too much, (4) don't know the quality of the publisher, YOU WILL BE PLEASED. The story comes across smoothly, the read has layers within the layers so you can read it more than once, and the author - I just can't give out enough praise.

I HIGHLY recommend this book and am happy, for once, about an impulse buy that still has me thinking on all the "what ifs" the idea spawns. It was really worth the buy.

If you like Zombies and Vampires mixed together in a book you will like this one. The world has been taken over by Zombies and the Vampires are trying to survive on what few humans are left on the earth, and protect what is left of their human stock from the Zombies. It is the ultimate duel between evil vs. evil. I loved the main character Shade she is a tough sexy vampire. This book is very well written, sexy, bloody and flows beautifully along. If you are a Zombie or Vampire book reader this is a must read I highly recommend.

Do you think you know zombie fiction? Well, think again. Author D.L. Snell arrives on the apocalyptic horror novel scene with a tale of vampires and zombies that'll rock any reader's socks.

The vamps are holed up in a veritable fortress, led by their Queen Shade, inheritor to a dead vampire king's legacy to "restore this City of Roses". Her general, a sexually charged predator called Frost, opines that the vampires abandon the urban locale and flee to a remote island, where they can hunt and kill with animalistic abandon.

Outside the walls, the walking dead -- actually a sort of flesh mecha 'piloted' by a pseudo-sentient mass of black jelly called the Puppeteer -- are eager to gain entry, and slowly experiencing alterations. They are evolving, but not in the manner of George A. Romero's _Land of the Dead_. No, these things aren't merely becoming 'humanized' by developing rudimentary speech or tool use. Their bodies are a'changing, growing, reshaping...

That's right. This isn't your daddy's zombie story. It's an action packed horror frolic, a vampire-zombie martini with bullets for olives. A heck of a lot of fun.

This has got to be one of the worst books I've ever read. I've never seen a author use so many mindless metaphors. The book is almost unreadable. It's short - but just getting through one chapter will take a massive effort.

Zombies have taken over the world, and most of the people are now dead. This is a problem for the few surviving vampires as the death of humans means the death of them. So the last known vampires have saved the last surviving humans and they are holed up in a fortified, retrofitted hotel. Well, cool. What a nifty idea. Too bad Snell does nothing interesting with it. For some reason, Snell has tried to combine the zombie novel with the sleazy SS concentration camp movies of the early seventies; the vampires even call themselves Aryans. I guess this whole concept must have sounded good in theory. For some lame, and unexplained reason, the vampires strip the humans naked, treat them worse than animals, store them in a large room, and abuse and kill them on a whim. I mean, these are the LAST SURVIVING HUMANS, and these are the LAST SURVIVING VAMPIRE'S only surviving foodsource, and the vampires kill the humans like they have an unending source. And like any bad SS concentration camp movie, there are mad scientists performing mad sadistic experiments on their prisoners. And what would any cheap and sleazy exploitation be without cheap and sleazy sex? Snell constantly sounds like a twelve-year-old boy who has learned to write sex scenes after reading, with one hand, the books that he has found at the bottom of his Dad's clothes drawers. A woman exposes her "flower", her "slavering blossom", and we get gems like "his veined proboscis parting the pink petals of her orchid", and by the halfway mark of this novel I was heartily sick of hearing of one woman's "sugarplum".

And if this isn't enough, and how could it not be?, the vampires are divided into two internecine factions, one led by the female Shade, who represents loyalty and progression. The other side is lead by the über-arrogant male, and German-speaking Bain, who represents the arrogance of unquestioned power. And each group is looking for an excuse to destroy each other. Yes, they are the last surviving vampires, yes they need to stick together to survive, and yes they can't wait to kill each other off. The vampires here are arrogant without mercy and without a doubt dumber than a box of hammers. If there is something idiotic that they can do to defeat their own self-interest, just stand back and watch them do it. This all could have been played as satire, but it's just played way too serious.

Meanwhile, the zombies are changing, evolving, and they are constantly learning new ways to break into the vampire's headquarters. You would think that this would cause the vampires to change their gameplan and pull together. You would think. You think wrong.

The problem is that none of the vampires show so much as one iota of character growth, they show zero character evolution, and remain boorishly the same. I've read many a novel in which I wanted a certain character to just get on with it and just die already, this is the first novel in a long time that made ME want to just die and get the suffering over with.

It's hard to believe that this novel came from the same pen as "Mortal Gods", which is to found in the anthology "Headshot Quartet". This novel is highly recommended by way too many people who are way too easily amused, and is a rare misfire from Permuted Press. Like most Permuted Press books this is a sturdy quality trade paperback, with a laminated cover, that should hold up under many readings, and has a vibrant, and exciting cover by Stephen Blundell. Maybe someday Snell will revisit this novel and give it a real re-write. Still take this review with a grain of salt. I hated this book, but loved the movie "Crank 2". It's all a matter of style, I guess. This book was played way too straight for the material.

Definitely one of a kind: Lyrical, brutal and bloody. The end of the world has come and the mutating zombie horde wants it all. The last bastion that defends humanity is guarded by vampires and their interest in humans is decidedly selfish. Snell pays homage to Ray Bradbury's prose and H.P. Lovecraft's denizens and crafts a nightmarish, supernatural tale of the end of man.

D.L. Snell's first novel is remarkable. ROSES OF BLOOD ON BARBWIRE VINES is a harrowing masterpiece. It starts with a familiar scenario in recent horror fiction--the zombies have risen and civilization is in ruins, then adds a new twist: there are vampires in this world, superhumanly strong and fast and they are struggling with the zombies in a Darwinian struggle over the rapidly dwindling source of human prey.
The vampires in this novel are different than any I've encountered before. They have no reservations about using human technology, and they have come up with the very practical tactic of farming humans. The details of this are chilling and give us a glimpse of what life would be like if we were subjected to the conditions of our own meat-animals.
The book was hard to read in the same sort of way that something like Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream" is hard. The violence and cruelty is unflinching and hard to take, but doesn't feel at all gratuitous. While the vampire-zombie fights are exciting, the intense violence suffered by the humans is not romanticized.

There's a great deal of sexual content in the story, though it's never really seen in the context of love or even kindness. Sex is one more tool in the vampires' arsenal, whether for seduction or torture, it's always connected with power. There are feelings of affection between some characters that could become sexual, but never do.

In this survival of the fittest story we enter expecting the vampires to win. They have the best resources, the best weapons, are superhumanly strong, fast, and perceptive. They are also are highly intelligent and supremely ruthless. Despite this, we quickly see them fighting an uphill battle for survival against zombies who constantly mutate into new and deadlier forms while struggling with their own internal struggles. The ability to trust and cooperate seems to be one of the most important survival skills in this world.
The zombies are the most original of Snell's creatures. They seem like the typical brain-eating undead of a George Romero movie, but quickly change. They adapt at a frightening rate as their bodies mutate, sometimes in helpful ways and others in a bizarre, self-hindering manner. They are a case of evolution run amuck and pose the main threat to the survival of humans and vampires alike.

As for the humans, they seem painfully helpless and suffer terribly at the hands of vampires, zombies and even each other. Still, it is the humans where we see the strongest sense of compassion and the determination in the face of hopeless situations. Though Snell's humans are brutally victimized through out there is something magnificent that shines through their helplessness. It's a novel filled with violence and ugliness, but beauty, in the form of compassion, loyalty, and hope can break out in unexpected ways.
The book worked very well for me on an emotional level, though somewhat less on an intellectual one. I wanted to know what the vampires were and where they had come from. I thought that the zombies evolved too fast to be believed without some sort of rationale. When you are the alpha-predator of the world, what is the impetus to run through tens or millions of years of development in one day?

Still, while there are logical questions, they don't detract from the fact that this is a very well-written story. Mr. Snell has an amazing imagination and a gift for expressive language. I'm looking forward to his next book.