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Title: Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour ISBN: 0-310-60810-4 Publisher: Chosen Books Pub. Date: January, 1984 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent Read; Excellent Race Relation Examination
Comment: As anyone knows, I'm a tough sell. It takes a lot for a book to capture my imagination and make me want to really, really read it and regret it when I reach the end. Blood Brothers was just such a book. What makes it a good book?
"In L.A., young black computer games programmer/hacker Derek Waites is horrified when a cop attempts to abduct his children- -promising teenager Troy and lovable young Dee--and his ex-wife Rachel. Recently, Dee has been going into trances and reporting messages from a certain Dahlia Washington. The connection? Well, Derek's family is descended from Dahlia and slave-owner Augustus DuPris; now hundreds of years old, DuPris is a sorcerer who rejuvenates himself by feeding on the life-forces of his descendants. Dahlia says that a man named Tucker can help Derek. Tucker, it emerges, is white, has connections to neo-Nazi groups, and is rotting in jail for murdering his family! But--aha!--Tucker is descended from another sorcerer, The African, DuPris's partner, who preys upon Tucker's family just as DuPris preys upon Derek's. So, even if Derek can bust Tucker out of jail, can the two set aside their differences to save Derek's children and defeat the sorcerers?"
That's the basic set-up but what makes this novel compelling is how each character actually has a personality. The novel does tend to jerk a little at the end, unfortunately the strongest books of this nature can't live up in scale in the end. That's a given when the book is really good. The trade-off is that the story really pumps as Derek and Tucker genuinely don't like one another, for self-valid reasons. At the heart of this book is themes of racism and underlying relationships. It's one of the first books that I've seen that suggested a physical and spiritual need for a cooperation between Black and White people, I think that's what makes this book outstanding. You could point out that Derek and Tucker as archetypes are reversed for socialized views of what they should be or should know---Derek has no "killer instinct" (his hesitancy puts him and others at risks and at the same time makes him invaluable as he stops and evaluates each move, like a chess player and Tucker is constantly acting without thinking (his greatest strength but also his greatest limitation).
I personally believe that the link between all the People's of this here planet Earth is basic, perhaps even down to the blood and the magic realism/sci fi-esque field will explore this area quicker than other forms of literature. The summer after discovering Steven Barnes I then found his name as a note on a Tananarive Due books, all three which are excellent as well. Between the two of them there is a slow but steady emergence in the Fantasy (? I have no idea what to specifiy this field as, it covers so many areas but I do believe that at a point it is firmly grounded New Literature).
This book then lead me on to another Barnes book, Iron Shadows and the measure of a book is whether or not one will go out and buy a book by the author again. Steven Barnes delivers.
Rating: 3
Summary: Intriguing premise marred by stilted writing and meager plot
Comment: In Blood Brothers, the sins of Africa and the ante-bellum South come back to haunt both black and white in modern LA. The flashbacks, narrated by the former slave and reluctant sorceress Dahlia, are tightly written and compelling. The author is at his best with pure description, keeping the dialogue short and almost formal. The contemporary scenes, by contrast, are overly long, crammed with too much peripheral detail. The proliferation of characters--and their internal dialogues laced with gratuitous profanity-- reminded me of Stephen King's early work--and for me, that's not a compliment. Plus, there were the unfortunate potholes in the plot, detailed at length by other reviewers here. That said, although the writing foibles did bounce me unceremoniously out of the story from time to time, I stuck with it to the end. If you're not overly picky, Blood Brothers is a reasonably satisfying Sunday night read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great mixture of action and mysticism
Comment: This was a great read! As so many of Barnes' novels, Blood Brothers tackles a series of human issues. The story essentially centers around two men who could not be more different: A black former computer hacker; divorced and still dealing the the pain of his split family. And a white, former special forces/martial artist serving a life sentence for the murder of his family...oh, and he is involved with the Aryan Nation in prison.
What makes this story so interesting is not how different these men are, but how truly similar they are. The two are forced to work together to unravel a mystery that is over a hundred years old. As always Barnes does a masterful job of getting his reader to 'become' each of the characters. In my opinion, great writing is about people, not about deep storylines, and Barnes pulls the reader in from the first page, making them truly empathize and care about all the characters.
A great read with lots of twists and turns.
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Title: Charisma by Steven Barnes ISBN: 0812568966 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Iron Shadows by Steven Barnes ISBN: 0812548086 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes ISBN: 0446612219 Publisher: Aspect Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Zulu Heart : A Novel of Slavery and Freedom in an Alternate America by Steven Barnes ISBN: 0446611956 Publisher: Aspect Pub. Date: 01 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due ISBN: 006105366X Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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