Smoke and Shadows [Hardcover]

Tanya Huff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2004

Acclaimed fantasy author Tanya Huff returns to entertaining fantasy territory with this first novel in a new trilogy-featuring a popular character from her acclaimed Blood series. Tony, a former street kid-turned-producer, is behind a new TV series about a vampire detective. But what is real and what is fantasy? The answers are to be found in a wizard who's come to Earth from another dangerous dimension...and he's been followed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lights, camera and action take a backseat to slippery shadows, snappy dialogue and an overwrought hybrid fantasy/SF plot in Canadian author Huff's alternately clever and annoying blend of farce, mystery and magic, the first in a trilogy. In this spinoff from the author's five-volume series (Blood Price, etc.) featuring vampire Henry Fitzroy, Fitzroy's streetwise ex-lover, Tony Foster, has moved with Fitzroy to Vancouver to study film. Now the set production assistant on CB Production's Darkest Night (think Angel), Foster pines for one of the hunky (alas, heterosexual) co-stars and dreams of being a director. When an actress is murdered under very "shadowy" circumstances, it turns out to have been done by a minion of a Shadowlord who slipped through a "gate" near the show's soundstage originally opened by Arra Pelindrake, a special effects wizard who also happens to be, well, a different sort of wizard on another world. Foster, Pelindrake and Fitzroy join forces to kill other minions sent to take over Earth and destroy Pelindrake, the Shadowlord's archenemy. The proceedings are enlivened with campy comments ("a world where Joss Whedon got canceled was exactly the kind of world where the Shadowlord could win"), but it's not enough to save an overextended plot light on substance and heavy with fang-in-cheek fun.
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From Booklist

Four-hundred-fifty-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy is trying to maintain a friendship with Tony Foster, a young man he rescued from the streets and used to drink blood from. Tony is now a production assistant for the syndicated show Darkest Night, where he has just discovered the dead body of the guest star. Tony fears it has something to do with the strange shadows he has seen around the studio, and his suspicions are confirmed when one shadow takes over the body of one of the show's stars. Tony turns to special-effects wizard Arra Pelindrake, who turns out to be a real wizard. She knows what the shadows are but is reluctant to help him, so Tony calls on Henry. Together, they persuade Arra to cooperate but can't get her to face down the shadows, with whom Tony and Henry are already being drawn into battle, for the shadows are intent on gaining a foothold in this world. An exciting, creepy adventure from a popular author. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: DAW Hardcover; First Edition edition (April 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756401836
• ISBN-13: 978-0756401832
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,913,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not her best, January 2, 2005

By 

riverrat01 "riverrat01" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Smoke and Shadows (Hardcover)

I'm a pretty big fan of Tanya Huff's work, including the Blood series. Tony, however, is not a particularly strong protagonist. He works on a cheesy TV show about vampires -- if you're interested in television production, perhaps you can get some mileage there. I didn't. It was fun watching Tony grow up in the background of the Blood books, but as a main character, he's pretty dull (especially for somebody with a supposedly colorful street-kid police-informant vampire-lover past).

On a bit of a tangent, it's never a good sign when somebody in a vampire novel comments that "Buffy" vampires are less scary than "the real thing." In the previous Blood books, the exact time (and its exact relationship to our reality) has been a little vague, and it worked well that way. The all-too-hip specificity is jarring and feels forced. Besides, Huff has done many intriguing things, but she's never really made scary vampires. Sure, we've been *told* that Vampires are Scary, but we've never been shown them doing anything truly frightening. We're told that when the "civlized mask" slips and "the Hunger" shows, people nearby will lose bladder control in terror -- but we never feel it.

The other emotion that doesn't seem to come through well in Huff's writing is lust, so Tony's crushes (and his relationship with Henry, his vampiric ex) aren't all that compelling either. The plot never had me all that worried about the fate of the earth, or even the fate of Tony. Without the lively characters and complex relationships of Huff's other books, there's not a lot left to enjoy. It's particularly unfortunate that this book is where Huff made the jump to hardcover; this story just is not worth hardcover prices. If the Vicki and Henry Show is over, Celluci would have made a more interesting new protagonist than Tony.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darkness Rises, August 8, 2004

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Smoke and Shadows (Hardcover)

I keep thinking that I should read more of Tanya Huff's other books, but they never appeal to me as much as the original volumes of this series do. I'm referring to the five volumes that tell of Vicki Nelson, a private investigator, and her relationship with Henry Fitzroy, on a prince, and now a vampire romance writer. There Huff demonstrated both finesse as a story-teller and a self-effacing style which kept everything in hand without calling on the hysteria which is often part of vampire fiction.

Well, here it is several years later and we find that Henry, and Tony Foster, who was for several years one of Fitzroy's lovers have shifted to Vancouver, where Tony has begun to find his way as a member of the strange world of broadcast television. His first major job is as production assistant on, of all things, a series about a vampire detective. All seems to be going well until Tony notices that some of the shadows on the set seem to have a will of their own. And then someone dies. And then...

Tony discovers that somehow the studio has been invaded by shadows who are up to no good. These are somehow tied to Arra Pelindrake, the special effects wizard. In fact, Arra is a wizard who does special effects, having fled her own reality as it fell to the Shadowlord. Now the darkness has found her here, and Tony, Arra, and Henry face a hopeless battle to stop this world from falling into darkness as well.

Tony faces several crises, not the least of which is the plight of a gay man trying to establish his independence from a 400 year old vampire. One who has a tendency to see everything as 'his.' While Henry isn't truly overbearing, he has both a possessive streak and a very strong personality. To make matters worse, Tony really does need help saving the world. What makes the novel click is that Huff uses a light but sure touch in working the threads of Tony's sexuality and need for identity into the plot without overwhelming the story.

Although Tony does come over as a bit of a wuss (shadows seem to make him nauseous - very nauseous), he gradually works past his initial wobbliness and develops onto a much stronger character than he was in the previous series. I do think that Huff should have spent more time redeveloping Fitzroy's character. Not every reader will have read the original series and having Henry drop in like a Deus Ex Machina and then step off-stage again doesn't ring true unless you know who Henry Fitzroy actually is.

Even so, Smoke and Shadows turned out to be far better than I initially expected. I would be delighted to read more of Tony's story andI hope that Tony and Henry will star together in a few more volumes before the sun rises again.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sinister goings-on at the TV studio, April 7, 2004

By 

L O'connor (richmond, surrey United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Smoke and Shadows (Hardcover)

Tony Foster from the 'Blood' series is living in Vancouver and working as a Production Assistant on a TV show about a vampire detective. The star of the show, Mason Reed, isn't a very nice person, we know this because he SMOKES, shock horror, and even worse, he smokes INDOORS! (could anyone possibly get more depraved?)Tony has a crush on the show's co-star, the gorgeous Lee Nicholas, but unfortunately Lee likes girls, lots of them. A minor member of the cast dies in mysterious circumstances, and Tony is convinced something weird is going on, and that it has something to do with the show's special effects woman, Arra Pelindrake. It turns out Arra is a refugee wizard from another world, and is being persued by the evil Shadowlord, intent on destroying her and taking over this world as he took over Arra's.Arra is reluctant to fight the Shadowlord because she is convinced she will fail, as she did on her own world. Luckily Tony's old pal vampire novelist Henry Fitzroy is on hand to help out, but can he and Tony do anything to defeat the Shadowlord? Like all Tanya Huff's books, this is an exciting story, but I did not find it as gripping as some of her other books. The trouble is that, although Tony is a nice boy, as a central character he simply does not hold my attention the way Vicki, Henry and Mike did, and I found myself only really gripped when Henry Fitzroy comes on the scene. One of the things I've always liked best about Huff's novels are her memorable strong female characters, not just her great heroines like Crystal, Vicki, Claire and Torin, but supporting characters too. Arra, however, seems a shadowy character (sorry) and I just didn't warm to her.The head of the studio, CB, is a good character, but there isn't enough of him. This is a very good book, but in my personal opinion it is not one of her very best.