# 6: Blood Brothers, by Steven Barnes
Feb. 5th, 2009 12:11 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rachelmanija.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
50books_pocAWESOMESAUCE.
I have reproduced the back cover copy below, because it's just that good, but with my own 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
I have reproduced the back cover copy below, because it's just that good, but with my own 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
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 04:30 am (UTC)my clicky finger is itchy and it's late at night and i'm reckless
Your wish, my command!
Date: 2009-02-06 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 11:15 pm (UTC)Also, ew. So the writer of the cover blurb basically saw it was about a black guy and assumed that he was "a black street hustler trying to go straight"??? Euuuurgh.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 11:34 pm (UTC)(I think Steve Barnes lives here too, but that isn't necessarily a guarantee. The terrible film Volcano, tagged "the coast is toast," which was undoubtedly written by people who live here, had a stereotyped black teenager beg a stereotyped white cop to help save his neighborhood from the volcano.
The cop said, "You live south of Wilshire? I'm not going into the hood!"
I yelled in the theatre, "South of Wilshire is not the hood!" The audience applauded.
Re: street hustler: yes. Trying to go straight: there's some basis for that. He did do time for hacking and theft. But he's long since gone straight, and he was never a career criminal to begin with. And definitely never a street hustler.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 07:24 am (UTC)Awww, and don't hate on Volcano! I know they get the locations wrong but the sheer cheese of it is so much better than Dante's Peak.
Vote for cheese.
And definitely never a street hustler.
God, I know. I try not to read the cover copy because otherwise my head would explode.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 04:29 am (UTC)8-) Can't wait.