The Blue Blazes: Wendig, Chuck, Hi-Fi, Joey: 9780857663351: Amazon.com: Books

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The Blue Blazes Mass Market Paperback – May 28, 2013

by Chuck Wendig (Author), Joey Hi-Fi (Illustrator)

147 ratings

Book 1 of 2: Mookie Pearl

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Meet Mookie Pearl.

Criminal underworld? He runs in it.

Supernatural underworld? He hunts in it.

Nothing stops Mookie when he's on the job.

But when his daughter takes up arms and opposes him, something's gotta give...

File Under: Urban Fantasy [ Family Matters | When Underworlds Collide | Thrill of the Hunt | Chips and Old Blocks ]

Book 1 of 2

Mookie Pearl
Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Angry Robot
Publication date

May 28, 2013
Dimensions

4.18 x 1.06 x 6.89 inches
ISBN-10

0857663356
ISBN-13

978-0857663351
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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

147 global ratings

5 star		54%
4 star		30%
3 star		12%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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A Blazing Blue Walk on the Wild Side

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2014

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Chuck Wendig is always an author that you can count on to tell an incredible, intelligent and truly unique, but also twisted tale that tends toward dark humor with a bit of self destructiveness on the side. His imagination is fabulously prodigious, as his characters resemble none that you will find in other novels, and his plots don't look anything like a typical plot you would find in today's writing. Wendig surely is one of a kind, and I mean that in the best of ways. In this novel, he has created a unique, wild, paranormal mob thriller ( like genre cross dressing ) who would think those three things would go together? Wendig makes it work so well, that the three together seem natural, almost organic under his expert hand. Maybe it will be the next big thing?

The Blue Blazes has so many positive reviews I won't bore everyone with another plot summary. Mookie Pearl is in the mob in N.Y. City. He runs the crew that harvests Blue Blaze, the drug found in the Great Below that allows people to open their third eye's, amongst other things. His daughter, wanting to compete with his boss, poisons Mookie in the first few pages, but not enough to kill him...and we're off to the races.

Wendig created an entire Great Below N.Y., with history, rules and natural laws, a cartographer, God's, creatures, lost souls, hybrids, magic, myths, religions, sacrifices, shapeshifters, flora and fauna, geology, strata, topography, towns, sacred substances, insects, soul suckers, temples and villages of the dead. It was amazing the detail that he went to considering most of the book occurred on the streets, but that is one hallmark of a CW book.

This story is like a mine car with no brakes, just like in the Indiana Jones movie, where it was zipping around at huge speed, jumping gaps in the track while twisting to the left and right unexpectedly to avoid pillars of rock. It looks like Mookie, his daughter Nora, and all N.Y.C. is headed for a major pileup.

Mookie is muscle as well as running blaze crews for the mob, so there is a considerable amount of beat downs in this novel. The body count is considerable. Most of the things he takes on are not human as they are from the Great Below. He does very little human killing. He does wreak havoc almost everywhere he goes, with a very few exceptions. Even though Mookie goes through gobbos, snakemen, and others from below, he really loves his daughter, and tries his best to keep her safe. He is a simple, faithful, loyal guy, who will be more than happy to protect you if you shoot straight with him. He is not a complicated man, but ends up being a guy that I was definitely pulling for. Nora is angry at Mookie for how he treated her, and her Mother. She is a young adult, so payback is what she wants. She is the one that has the book smarts in the family, but emotionally, she is fixated on the fact that she didn't get enough attention from her Father. What will it cost her to get what she wants? That question drives some of the action in the novel. The other characters in the story, even the secondary characters like Burnsy, Skelly, Candlefly, the Boss, Haversham, Mr. Smiley and Wertz were all well characterized with backstories, descriptions, quirks, foibles and their own unique dialogue. Each was a striking individual, and while they all weren't human, they could all appear to be, and act like it as well. Masterclass characterization overall.

The plot started out diverting you in one direction, but soon, things will happen at pivotal points in the book that change the scope of the novel and the size of the problem Mookie encounters. Wendig is a great one for ratcheting up the tension through his story arcs, and he does a fabulous job ratcheting up the tension at each of those pivotal points until you are dying to know what happens next - keeping you flipping the pages as fast as you can read. At one point, it looks like Mookie, and/or Nora are done for. You will have to read to find out what happens.

The ending is bittersweet. It was the best ending for the book, but my heart broke over Jess. That was sad, but so enlightening. The last part with Kelly was the sweet part, and was richly deserved. Awesome way to end the most creative, wild,paranormal mob thriller I've ever read. So Highly Recommended, that I can't recommend it enough!

3 people found this helpful

Blends action, crime, fantasy and comedy into a smoky, salty, satisfying whole

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2013

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There is a scene in Chuck Wendig's The Blue Blazes which encapsulated the feeling of the book perfectly for me:

"Skelly experiences an odd moment of bliss - an absurd sensation that all her life has led to this strange and singular moment. Ramping a jacked-up hell-quad over a dirge-singing pack of goblins with a burned-to-death stuntman at the wheel."

Seriously, if you don't like those two sentences, you're just not the quality of person I need in my life. Sorry, Aunt Dorothy.
That scene's the soul of the book. It is fast, exciting, and left me breathless and flying more than once. It's a quick and bloody read that blends action, crime, fantasy and comedy into a smoky, salty, satisfying whole.

Mookie Pearl is a bruiser with heart, wrapped up in a criminal underworld which seems to fit him fine. His job within "the Organization" involves interacting with the supernatural landscape that lies beneath New York City, in addition to breaking the legs and faces of more mortal nuisances.

Trouble comes to him from three sides in The Blue Blazes: His Boss is dying, the forces below are rising, and his estranged daughter has not only taken up with opposing gangs but is actively working to take over the Organization itself.

Wendig does a great job at crafting characters who are terribly flawed and yet eminently forgivable, people you love reading about but probably wouldn't want to meet. Their motivations, for the most part, are clear and direct - which helps propel the book forward and provides great surprises when more slippery characters emerge. There's not a single throwaway character in the book; even those who get a single scene like Skinny Rope are fleshed out and actualized to make you see and believe in them.

The supernatural landscape is composed of great set-pieces that are deftly described and eminently suited to the imagination, though they never detract from the characters or plot. This is not a meander-and-admire piece of world building, but is written with a cinematographer's eye for showing you exactly enough to remind you that you're not in Kansas anymore.

There's also an excellent framing device in `The Journals of John Atticus Oakes,' which provides a nicely Lovecraftian counterpoint for those of us who enjoy a little creeping horror in addition to their slam-bang action. While there's further inspiration from Lovecraft at the dark heart of the book itself, the forces that are behind their actions don't hide behind the "insane mad cultist" mask. They're understandable, coherent, civilized, well-spoken and thoroughly sure of themselves.

By the end of the book, every character's been changed by their trip through the wringer, and have dealt with the sins of their past - the central theme, as I saw it. It's a thoroughly satisfying end with more than one twist in the final few pages.

Are there problems with the book? Sure, but they're few and far between.

Aside from the Organization for which Mookie works, the gangscape of the Blue Blazes feels more like The Warriors than The Wire, which wouldn't be a problem if the Organization weren't meant to be taken so seriously. One gets the sense that the other gangs are kids at play rather than serious threats to law, order, or other gangs.

One of Wendig's strengths is in his ability to describe brutality and violence. This is a fabulous thing in his books, but I sometimes wonder how the characters manage to survive at all. It's harder to suspend your disbelief about the comic-book toughness of the heroes when the action is so evocative. Remember in Die Hard when John McLane walks barefoot across broken glass? Ramp that up and run it over several pages, and you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about.

Finally, there's not enough charcuterie for my tastes.

That last sentence will make more sense once you read the Blue Blazes - and trust me, you want to. Order it today!

One person found this helpful

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Bertolt

’ Their work ranges from the awful to the pretty damned good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 29, 2017

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There are probably a couple of hundred people today writing what might broadly be considered ‘urban fantasy.’ Their work ranges from the awful to the pretty damned good. Most of it, though, is a bit amateur. With even the best, the writing is often creaky. The ideas are derivative, a rehash of the clichés of the genre, and the stories tend to be poorly constructed (stuff happens, then more stuff happens, then…). I suspect this is partly due to self-publishing (a lot of people are getting books out there that would, in a different time, have stayed in their heads), and partly to the fact that the authors are young. While there are certainly pleasures to be had from many of the books, frequently the authors don’t really measure up as professional writers.

Chuck Wendig isn’t one of these. He is the real thing. This is most evident in his actual writing. Wendig’s writing is thrilling: brash, fast, trashy, often obscene – and at its best, inventive and evocative, a pleasure in itself: whether you like it or not, it is unquestionably stylish and accomplished. His characterisation is typically very vivid and his imagination is off-centre (again, at his best), so even when dealing with familiar material he can surprise. He also writes actual stories; beginnings, middles, conclusions. That’s not to say he is without flaws. Although vivid, his characters don’t develop much, and his stories don’t take you on a journey (they ain’t gonna change your life) – but in doing what they do, they can be pitch-perfect.

His weakness seems to be quality control. Wendig can write BLACKBIRDS, but he can also write DOUBLE DEAD, which reads like it was dashed off in a weekend and lacks many (most?) of the positive qualities described above.

Which brings me to THE BLUE BLAZES. If I were comparing this to the best of Wendig’s own novels, I’d give this four stars – but as I’m comparing it to everyone else’s, I’ll give it five. Okay, stories in which a supernatural world lurks beneath the life of a modern city are not exactly rare. But how many feature an overweight gangster thug with a butcher’s cleaver and a penchant for cured meat products as their hero? A gang of rollerblading post-punk street girls with tartan skirts and Bowie knives? A dynastic struggle taking the form of a supernatural drugs trade and breaking into a gang war? And all of it wrapped in fast, vivid writing. It may be your thing or it may not, but the very least you will get your money’s worth.

One person found this helpful

Rowena Hoseason

Urban fantasy meets old-time evil

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 22, 2015

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Mookie Pearl is a great creation, a fictional protagonist who just for once isn’t gifted, handsome, wise-cracking or a wizard. He’s an ugly, pug-faced lunk (albeit an unusually intelligent lunk) who breaks heads and solves problems with blunt instruments as a mob enforcer. He’s a heavyweight of the underworld – and in this universe, a compelling, coherent construction from the pen of Chuck Wendig – Mookie moves effortlessly from the criminal underworld to the subterranean, paranormal underworld. That’s where goblins and ghouls and bad things lurk, and where Mookie does most of his work.

This is a hard-assed, no-holds-barred blend of black-humoured noir and the sinister supernatural, with substantial action set pieces thrown in. There’s little philosophising or moral debate, but a whole chunk of inventive concepts stitched together into a convincing construct and peopled with realistic characters (and that’s surely saying something for half-men half-goats, or the living corpse of a fire victim). It righteously rattles along, deftly pulls the plot lines together, and offers a far more substantial read than the average ‘wizard high jinks’ urban fantasy. There’s quite a few tributes to ‘golden age’ horror tales in here, too.
There's more about the plot and characters over at murdermayhemandmore.net

The Blue Blazes is also blunt, violent and bloodily explicit, so not for folks who lean more towards the ‘romantic’ side of the supernatural spectrum. This is hard-boiled and reasonably hard-core, and a blast from beginning to end.
9/10

2 people found this helpful

Neil Bourque

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 12, 2016

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A cracking story told in style. Read it in two sittings (!)

One person found this helpful

Büchermonster

Dreckiger Urban-Fantasy-Horror mit atmosphärischem Setting

Reviewed in Germany on September 7, 2014

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Chuck Wendig hat sich im letzten Jahr mit seiner Miriam-Black-Reihe in mein Leserherz geschrieben, was vor allem an der sehr unkonventionellen und vorsichtig als “schwierig” zu beschreibenden Protagonistin lag – und auch sein Roman “The Blue Blazes” schlägt bei der Hauptfigur eine ähnliche Richtung ein. Mookie Pearl ist ein grobschlächtiger Riese, der aufgrund seines einschüchternden Äußeren, der beeindruckenden Muskelkraft und des beunruhigend effektiven Umgangs mit seinem großen Fleischerbeil als Mann fürs Grobe bei der Organisation arbeitet, die den Handel mit der Szenedroge Cerulean kontrolliert. Abseits der Arbeit ist Mookie jedoch ein kläglicher Versager und hat nicht nur seine Ehe gegen die Wand fahren lassen, sondern auch noch seine Tochter durch völlige Missachtung gegen sich aufgebracht. Und genau das rächt sich jetzt, denn die früher so süße Nora will nun ebenfalls im Geschäft der Großen mitmischen. Nicht nur im Hause Pearl ist somit Ärger vorprogrammiert, auch Mookies Boss lässt sich dieses Eindringen in sein Revier natürlich nicht gefallen. Der hat aber wiederum auch noch andere Sorgen, muss er doch aufgrund seiner unheilbaren Krebserkrankung einen Nachfolger für die Leitung seiner Organisation finden…

Wie man sieht, gibt es in “The Blue Blazes” gleich eine ganze Reihe akuter Baustellen, und so braucht man als Leser zunächst einmal ein paar Kapitel, um sich in Wendigs New Yorker Universum zurechtzufinden – denn als wäre die Story nicht eh schon kompliziert genug, spielt diese auch noch in einer Big-Apple-Version, die von schrecklichen Monstern direkt aus der Hölle überschwemmt wird. Und während man mit dem ewig scheiternden Mookie Pearl als Leser recht schnell warm wird, muss man sich in dieses ungewöhnliche System voller seltsamer Kreaturen und berauschender Substanzen zunächst einmal hineinarbeiten. Dafür trägt das Setting aber unverkennbar die Handschrift Chuck Wendigs, denn dessen Unterwelt ist genauso dreckig, skrupellos, brutal und voller Abschaum wie man es von ihm vermutlich erwartet, wenn man die Miriam-Black-Reihe kennt.

Während ich das Setting super und wirklich gut durchdacht fand, war mir die Story zuweilen jedoch etwas zu chaotisch. Gerade in der Phase vor dem Schlussakt fehlte es mir ein wenig an der erzählerischen Linie, da ging es für meinen Geschmack einfach zu sehr drunter und drüber. Zudem hat mir Mookie Pearl als Hauptfigur zwar gut gefallen und dieser entwickelte mit fortschreitender Handlung gerade auch wegen seines schwierigen persönlichen Hintergrundes immer mehr Serien-Potenzial, im Vergleich mit den Eigenheiten einer Miriam Black zieht der tragisch-sympathische Schläger jedoch klar den Kürzeren – hier ist für die nächsten Bände auf jeden Fall noch ein wenig Luft nach oben. Dennoch: Wer “Blackbirds”, “Mockingbird” und “The Cormorant” mochte, dem wird mit ziemlicher Sicherheit auch “The Blue Blazes” gefallen, auch wenn dieses meiner Meinung nach deutlich mehr in die Urban-Fantasy-Richtung geht und z.B. kaum noch Thriller-Elemente aufweist. Doch Wendigs drastischer und häufig vulgärer Stil ist auch hier wieder sehr ausgeprägt – und genau das ist es, was ich an dessen Büchern so sehr mag. Deshalb ist der zweite Band “The Hellsblood Bride” auch bereits vorbestellt…

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rafa

Magnífico

Reviewed in Spain on December 22, 2013

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Estupendo libro. Muy bien escrito, se lee rápido y está lleno de detalles curiosos. Leeré más del autor sin duda

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