Customer Reviews

Vampire Blood In Blood Out (2) (Vampire the Requiem)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book was just awful, before you read this review you should know I didn't finish it, I couldn't take it. Very pretentious dialogue, little action and a character with way too much angst for him to be believable, especially in the World Of Darkness. After finishing the precursor `A Hunger Like Fire' and loving it, I quickly ordered the next one in the series. I noted it was by a different author, but I assumed the quality would be much the same. I was wrong.

First there is the main character, he is unquestionably black (and don't get me wrong, that's not the issue at all). The story is mostly told from his point of view (unlike the first, which switched between characters in the chapters, this one mostly stays with one, switching only once and a while) which disappointed me, but I figured maybe it would turn out alright. Again, wrong. It's not the fact that a lot of racial profiling is done in the book, though the racism did make me a little uncomfortable. But that was the characters viewpoint, and I was cool with it. It's not even the fact that the main characters name is Deuce (Really? Deuce? Awful name.) I think I couldn't identify or even feel sorry for this guy because everything was so cut-and-dry `this is your hero and everyone else is evil'. And I know from lots of WOD experience that there is never any such thing as a good guy. After a while, I just realized that this guy was pretty much a more gangsta version of Blade, without the daywalker stuff and without the sidekicks.

Some plot points to follow, no big spoilers-

In the beginning, Deuce starts out with a hot girlfriend, human of course, and he likes her too much to blood bond her or tell her his `dark secret'. Stereotypical vampire dilemma you see in so many lesser vampire novels (coughTwilightseriescough), so it immediately turned me off. He's also on the outs with the Carthians, the group he helped further the cause of (more angst for joo!). But the worst insult came with Persephone, who in the last book was portrayed as callus and haughty but really clever, naive to the vampire world but still a tough cookie. Here she seems like a shallow, paper-thin character who was only inserted back into the book to thicken the plot. Simon Birch is nothing but a scheming, angry old vampire now, when before he was a complex layering of loyalty, power, faith and greed.

Mostly I'm angry because I wanted to return to the story to read more about my favorite characters, Persephone, Bruise and Scratch. I was again disappointed, I'm halfway through and still no Bruise or Scratch is even mentioned. Deuce is not nearly complicated enough to fit in with the earlier characters in the series. I guess my bottom line is if you have to write a book revolving around the plot of one guy, don't make it a sequel and just ram your guy into the other characters lives, make it a stand alone book.

I'm a big fan of the new World of Darkness, and after reading the far-superior "A Hunger Like Fire," this was a real let-down: a vampire story about a gangsta, "proper thug" vampire and his struggle against the Kindred power structure.
Black nationalist criminal organizations such as the Black Guerilla Family are portrayed in a sympathetic light: their methods are condemned, but not their motives.
There is lots of strong sentiment about being a part of one's community and not abandoning one's "people," in the racialist sense. The characters drop plenty of references to Huey P. Newton (Black Panthers founder), Tupac Shakur, Elijah Muhammed, Eldridge Cleaver, and other black nationalist heroes.I could never imagine this novel getting published if it had white characters espousing the same sentiment.
Along with plenty of profanity and fairly stomach-churning sex scenes,there's three or four uses of the term "cracker" as a racial epithet in this novel; apparently racial slurs are alright with the publisher as long as they're used against white folks.
Skip this volume in the "Vampire: The Requiem" novel series and head right on into the third volume, "The Marriage of Virtue and Viciousness" instead.

First of all, it's not as good as the first Requiem novel, "A Hunger Like Fire." I simply didn't find myself enjoying it quite as much. Maybe being a white suburbanite I had difficulty relating to the "blackness" of the main character. It's odd how it can be easier to identify with a monster (the vampire) than someone of another color or creed. Anyway, I just didn't feel like the pacing or the flow was as smooth or enjoyable.

That all being said, it was an excellent Requiem novel. It was great to see the Carthians something like the Congress or Parliment; sometimes unified in purpose, sometimes squabling like deadly children over who's sandbox is bigger. The love/sex scenes were fantastic; they weren't terribly erotic but they really bring home the absence of real love for those suffering the vampiric condition. It also does an excellent job of showing the necessity of politics and contacts.

Perhaps most importantly, I just want to turn the next page to see what happened next. A good book always leaves you wishing there was more to read; this does it.

This one is a real let down after "Hunger like Fire." If you're confident in your ability to trudge through a novel for the sake of minimal continuity, then go for it. If you'd rather just skip this one and move on to "Marriage of Virtue and Visciousness," then you really won't miss much story. I'm not familiar with Lucien Soulban's other work, but I hope White Wolf keeps him away from their projects for a bit.

Don't despair though, the 3rd novel in the series redeems it, though I still enjoyed the first one a little bit more.

Blood In, Blood Out is an excellent follow-up to A Hunger Like Fire. Though the two were written by two different authors, there was no continuity problem that I could discern. Watching the development of characters such as Persephone and Duce as well as Solomon Birch and other characters more in the background made this book an enthralling read. The only issue I had was that I wish there was more about the Nosferatu Bruce (Bruise), the protagonist from the first book. He was an interesting character, and I hope he is mentioned more in upcoming novels.

There is quite a lot of colloquialistic dialect from Duce and his side of things, but never once did I feel it becoming cliched as one other reviewer felt. To me, it helped me visualize the characters better, visualize who they were and where they came from before they were Embraced.

In one way this was a better read than A Hunger Like Fire, but only because Blood In, Blood Out lacked all the grammatical and typographical errors from its predecessor.

All in all, this was a fun read. If you enjoyed A Hunger Like Fire, then I suggest you pick this one up.

I actually enjoyed this book for the same reason I enjoy playing in the Vampire role playing game. There was action, intrigue, romance, everything. The book was a quick read, with several chapters and sections ending with questions.

Before actually playing a game of Vampire, I thought it would be a good idea to read the books so that I could get a feel for the different clans and covenants of Kindred and how they interact with each other and with mortals. This book was a nice sample of how the Invictus and Lancea Sanctum (Mostly the Invictus, however) and the Carthians work. I can't wait until further installments when we get to read about the Circle and the Dragons, which are among my favorites.

To a certain point I do agree that the book can seem a bit 'stereotypical gansta' But as a black female, I'm not offended at all. There are several other Kindred of color in the the World of Darkness and Duce, the main character, and the gangs and the freedom fighters are only a small representative of them. For example, take Prince Maxwell. He doesn't fit the 'traditional gansta' stereotype at all. I'd also like to note that this book is not "Vampire's in the Hood', which is seems most reviewers (not necessarily on this site) would like to call it. The story is told from a point of view of a character most readers may not be used to.

All in all, this book was a quick read for anyone who enjoys the the line of RPGs under the World of Darkness and I would definitely recommended to it to everyone.

This is my first review on Amazon. I am writting it because I just could not stand this book. The author Lucien Soulban seems to be a good writer, but where did all of these issues come from? I am not forming an opinion on the strugle of any people who live in the United States, but this was WAY too much. I bought this book to read about Vampires and fantasy. I have never had such a hard time getting through a book in my life. The characters did not fit into the World of Darkness theme at all. The main character Duce would have been staked and killed within the first few chapters in any other World of Darkness author's books. I am just ranting now and I am sorry for that. I do not recommend this book to anyone. I wish Mr. Soulban would rewrite this book, because I know the author has talent.

After reading the first of the new Requiem novels (A Hunger Like Fire), I couldn't wait to continue reading the series. Lucien Soulban quickly killed that desire. The characters seem so flat and boring that I just couldn't force myself to finish the book. If you liked the first Requiem Novel, you might as well skip this one and move on to the next.

Blood In, Blood Out is one of those novels that really strikes a chord. Its dark, unapologetic look at urban vampires trapped between the politically cutthroat world of the Kindred and social dynamism is profoundly and accuratly compared with the struggle for equal rights that has plagued America since the first slaves were shipped over from Africa.

Lucien Soulban immerses his readers in a world where loyalties ride the same fine line that keeps a vampire's Hunger at bay. Stark prose and unflinching dialog steeped in an honest urban portrayal make this novel a MUST READ, not only amongst Vampire and World of Darkness fans, but also as a powerful literary interest. The charactesr are very well thought out and detailed. Motivations are made clear and political backstabbing is met with a deep philosophical outlook as the main character struggles with who he was before The Kiss and who he is now.

For those who want to compare this with Greg Stolze's fantastic first novel...don't. They are two completely different animals (aside from the technical variants). While Stolze took one into the very minds of his characters from their own unique perspectives, Soulban gives us an outsider's glimpse into the underpinnings of Kindred politics and social avenues. He allows us to see The Invictus and The Sanctified as the Carthians may see them. This, in an of itself, is a great reason to read this novel. That it also masterfully captures the essence of the World of Darkness in a beautiful, literary fashion, seals the deal.

Wow, so much hate for this book I almost never read it. Glad I found it at a used book store, because it turns out it's pretty good. The story, as noted in other reviews, revolves around a recently turned (we don't know his exact vamp age but it's implied that he was embraced a less than a decade prior) black-pride-ish character. One reviewer seems to be pretty upset about this; I'm not really sure why he's being so sensitive because the author did a fine job of conveying street lingo without it getting annoying. I want to point out that that's something most authors completely fail at - even the legendary Poe had a black servant in one of his short stories who spoke in lingo, and Poe's character was so bloody annoying I started skimming those dialogues.

Furthermore the idea really works; the book is about a Carthian leader. Where else would a ghetto-raised, black pride, community-oriented vampire end up? The story makes perfect sense, and it hits the reader from an unexpected angle (which appears to be part of what's upsetting people).

I thought the character development went well also. A previous reviewer decried the treatment of Birch, but Birch was a minor character in this novel and received fair treatment. Penelope was developed through the choices that social reality forced on her and was also treated just fine. The main character and his best friend were developed well enough that when something befell one of them I was a little bummed.

Also, the story itself is well-balanced between lively action and political intrigue. Many of the older WoD books got a little bogged down in the latter and ended up either boring or esoteric (which then turned to plain boring).

Finally ... complaining about violent and disturbing sex scenes between two vampires in a horror novel? Come on already. This is an adult horror genre, not Twilight. That only happened twice I believe (think 3 pages out of about 270), and if it bothers you there's a highly technical fix. You take your pointer finger and trace down the page, skimming really quickly until you see that the scene moves on to something else. Rocket science!