Blood Brothers, by Steven Barnes

AWESOMESAUCE.

I have reproduced the back cover copy once more, but this time with corrections and additions. Original copy in italics.

Austin Tucker was a Green Beret, a man with lightning reflexes and the training to use them. He also benefits from magically enhanced senses and speed - something his father taught him and said runs in the family. But his life was shattered one Thanksgiving night when strangers invaded his home and killed his son, his daughter, and his wife. Actually, it's his daughter who cries out a strange warning and them spontaneously combusts. The heartbroken Tucker is arrested, convicted, and sent to jail, where he becomes so depressed that he starts hanging out with white supremacists, all the time impotently longing for revenge on the killers of his family.

Derek Waites was once an outlaw computer hacker, the infamous Captain Africa. Now he designs computer games. Someone has just tried to kidnap his son, while his daughter cried a strange warning and burst into flames. This is wrong. Her hair starts smoking, but because she inherited her great-great-great grandmother's magic nightgown with hair woven into it, she was able to get under a cold shower in time.

The two men have nothing in common - Tucker is a white man from the suburbs. Waites is a black street hustler trying to go straight. Terrible description of Derek - he comes from an upper-middle-class background, his hacking is limited to pranks and one illegal act of somewhat justified revenge-via-theft, and there is no street hustling involved.

But they are brothers in the same cause. If Tucker and Waites can resolve their differences long enough to work together, they can defeat an ancient evil. Between them they have the skills and the knowledge to break an ancient cycle of supernatural predation, and save the lives of a generation of children.

That part is all true. And just as fun as it sounds! Barnes' writing style matches his pulp action plot, though luckily it either gets less clunky as he goes along or else I got used to the clunking. But the energy, fast pace, likable characters, touching family relationships, sometimes dark humor, blessedly accurate portrayal of Los Angeles, and thoroughly cracktastic plot elements make this book quite a treat, if you like this sort of thing. I know I do! Especially when it involves both martial arts and psychic kids.

There are some serious elements - slave history and the Rodney King riots are an integral part of the story - but they give the story depth rather than weighing it down. I also liked that Barnes' characters appreciate physically strong women. At one point the omniscient narration admiringly compares Derek's ex-wife's body to that of a "talented semi-pro bodybuilder." I almost never see that sort of appreciation in print, and I like it. Though the women and girls are supporting characters rather than leads, there's a lot of them, they're important, and their moral dilemmas and courage are highlighted.

I could have done without the only Indian character being a villain and frequently called "the Indian," and with another villain being referred to as "The African." But the overall tone of the book was so humane and inclusive that those seemed more like accidental relics from the writing style of older pulp novels than meant to express any opinions of the author.

Direct link to buy it from Amazon:

Blood Brothers

Blood Brothers, by Steven Barnes

AWESOMESAUCE.

I have reproduced the back cover copy once more, but this time with corrections and additions. Original copy in italics.

Austin Tucker was a Green Beret, a man with lightning reflexes and the training to use them. He also benefits from magically enhanced senses and speed - something his father taught him and said runs in the family. But his life was shattered one Thanksgiving night when strangers invaded his home and killed his son, his daughter, and his wife. Actually, it's his daughter who cries out a strange warning and them spontaneously combusts. The heartbroken Tucker is arrested, convicted, and sent to jail, where he becomes so depressed that he starts hanging out with white supremacists, all the time impotently longing for revenge on the killers of his family.

Derek Waites was once an outlaw computer hacker, the infamous Captain Africa. Now he designs computer games. Someone has just tried to kidnap his son, while his daughter cried a strange warning and burst into flames. This is wrong. Her hair starts smoking, but because she inherited her great-great-great grandmother's magic nightgown with hair woven into it, she was able to get under a cold shower in time.

The two men have nothing in common - Tucker is a white man from the suburbs. Waites is a black street hustler trying to go straight. Terrible description of Derek - he comes from an upper-middle-class background, his hacking is limited to pranks and one illegal act of somewhat justified revenge-via-theft, and there is no street hustling involved.

But they are brothers in the same cause. If Tucker and Waites can resolve their differences long enough to work together, they can defeat an ancient evil. Between them they have the skills and the knowledge to break an ancient cycle of supernatural predation, and save the lives of a generation of children.

That part is all true. And just as fun as it sounds! Barnes' writing style matches his pulp action plot, though luckily it either gets less clunky as he goes along or else I got used to the clunking. But the energy, fast pace, likable characters, touching family relationships, sometimes dark humor, blessedly accurate portrayal of Los Angeles, and thoroughly cracktastic plot elements make this book quite a treat, if you like this sort of thing. I know I do! Especially when it involves both martial arts and psychic kids.

There are some serious elements - slave history and the Rodney King riots are an integral part of the story - but they give the story depth rather than weighing it down. I also liked that Barnes' characters appreciate physically strong women. At one point the omniscient narration admiringly compares Derek's ex-wife's body to that of a "talented semi-pro bodybuilder." I almost never see that sort of appreciation in print, and I like it. Though the women and girls are supporting characters rather than leads, there's a lot of them, they're important, and their moral dilemmas and courage are highlighted.

I could have done without the only Indian character being a villain and frequently called "the Indian," and with another villain being referred to as "The African." But the overall tone of the book was so humane and inclusive that those seemed more like accidental relics from the writing style of older pulp novels than meant to express any opinions of the author.

Direct link to buy it from Amazon:

Blood Brothers

Monster, by Walter Dean Myers

Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. The prosecutor calls him a monster, and accuses him of being the look-out during a robbery in which a shop owner was shot dead. (Steve isn't accused of doing the shooting, but any participation in a crime involving a murder can get a person charged with murder.)

In jail and miserable, Steve alternates writing a diary with dramatizing the events in a screenplay. And that is the only perspective we ever get on the events: the diary, which Steve knows the prosecutor might read and use against him; and the screenplay, which alternately attempts to glamorize and humanize his own life.

This intense novel is remarkably readable despite the unusual format, which I normally find very hard to plow through. Given the inherent possibilities for unreliable narration, I was positive that there would be a surprise ending of some sort. There was, sort of, or at least not an ending that I expected. It turned out to be more about emotion and less about plot than I had expected; I thought it was satisfying emotionally, but I really wanted to know just how unreliable Steve's version of events was, and unless I missed something, the ending doesn't indicate that at all.

A well-written, ambitious, meaty novel, but not one I'd be likely to re-read. Since I couldn't be sure how much of what Steve wrote was genuine and how much was a clever attempt to get himself off the hook or lie to himself, I never really connected to him.

Click on the link to buy it from Amazon:

Monster

( Spoilers )

Monster, by Walter Dean Myers

Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. The prosecutor calls him a monster, and accuses him of being the look-out during a robbery in which a shop owner was shot dead. (Steve isn't accused of doing the shooting, but any participation in a crime involving a murder can get a person charged with murder.)

In jail and miserable, Steve alternates writing a diary with dramatizing the events in a screenplay. And that is the only perspective we ever get on the events: the diary, which Steve knows the prosecutor might read and use against him; and the screenplay, which alternately attempts to glamorize and humanize his own life.

This intense novel is remarkably readable despite the unusual format, which I normally find very hard to plow through. Given the inherent possibilities for unreliable narration, I was positive that there would be a surprise ending of some sort. There was, sort of, or at least not an ending that I expected. It turned out to be more about emotion and less about plot than I had expected; I thought it was satisfying emotionally, but I really wanted to know just how unreliable Steve's version of events was, and unless I missed something, the ending doesn't indicate that at all.

A well-written, ambitious, meaty novel, but not one I'd be likely to re-read. Since I couldn't be sure how much of what Steve wrote was genuine and how much was a clever attempt to get himself off the hook or lie to himself, I never really connected to him.

Click on the link to buy it from Amazon:

Monster

( Spoilers )