Even if you ’ve been experiencing some vampire fatigue late , Cherie Priest ’s smart - back talk , sticky - finger friend is still deserving expend 350 pages with . or else of trying to reinvent the vampire genre , Priest just give it Modern life and potence .
underage spoilers forwards !
Raylene Pendle is secretive , and she ’s paranoid , and she ’s arrest good reason to be both . She is , of track , a vampire . She ’s got residency , banking company accounts , and back - up identities cache nationwide . And under the false name Chesire Red , she ’ll slip whatever you need ( for a very reasonable sum , naturally ) .
Bloodshot opens with a letter from a would - be customer and chap vampire requesting an audience . When Raylene see with Ian Scott , she unwrap several thing : He ’s blind ( which should n’t even be possible ) , he ’s made some severely evil enemies in the U.S. government , and he ’s frightfully soundly - look . Against her well judgment , she agrees to aid him by tracking down classified documents that might facilitate heal his sightlessness . A span of day later on , she ’s acquired a sidekick in the form of Adrian , a micturate - off pull queen / former Navy SEAL , and together they ’re dodging MIBs in downtown Atlanta . Guns blaze . Jugulars are ripped out .
The novel ’s premiss and mythology are n’t exactly groundbreaking . Priest has n’t put any particular twist on vampire folklore . Raylene ca n’t hit laser out of her orb , and Ian Scott does n’t have glittery fang . And unless you are a die - hard , Edward - Cullen - wall - decal - buying fanatic , you ’re probably vampired - out at this point . For those keep on scotch at home , in recent years we ’ve had teen vampires , southerly vampires , shapeshifting vampire , vampires versus aliens , and Abraham Lincoln , vampire hunting watch . To do something really original , Priest would probably have to get so far out on a limb that it would check and post her crashing to the ground , wooden leg shattered .
At first glimpse , Raylene seems pretty intimate as well — armed to the teeth , exudate bad posture and able to despatch numerous villains at one go . Her arsenal seems redundant when you consider her supernatural persuasiveness and hurrying . ( No word on whether she has the ubiquitous bum stamp . see it another of her many secrets . ) Much of the book is spent intimidate and/or snacking on g - gentleman . Paranoid , prickly , and reluctant to keep “ pet people ” around , she ’s a fleck like Lisbeth Salander ’s well - adjusted cousin . of course , she doth dissent her independency too much , as she ’s already taking tending of a couple of lovable , troublesome orphan .
But this playscript only involve one affair to be marvelous , and that ’s Raylene ’s voice . There ’s an entertainingly fast-growing wackiness about her . The intellection of government satellites afford her the shivers , so she only aim the bland government - style cars . She ’s witty and shrewd and splendidly lecherous . Here she is , leer at Adrian / Sister Rose in full black - ops ninja geartrain : “ The shirt outfit him like a paint job . I sanction . ” She beg the forgiveness of cemetery corpse , explaining :
Step on a crevice and break your female parent ’s back ? ill-use on a tomb and horrifying things might bechance you , or maybe not , because , like , who ’s going to do the befalling ? I do n’t recognize . It does n’t rhyme . But that ’s what it is , and that ’s how I wrap — awkwardly , and mumbling like a lunatic past the cracked and crooked stones .
One last warning : This is n’t an entirely self - curb story like Boneshaker . While Priest ’s steampunk novel tend to end on a full full stop , Bloodshot was understandably written with a sequel already in the work . The big regretful remain at enceinte as the novel closes , though we do get a dyad of satisfactory evisceration . It ’s nothing like the cliffhanger at the end of Connie Willis ’ Blackout ( which might have exhort a sore scuffle by this referee across Dublin , Ireland , in search of All Clear to interpret immediately ) , but do n’t ask a pretty bundle envelop up with a sparkly bowknot .
Bloodshotbook reviewBooksCherie Priest
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