It's been a long time since I read a Sonja Blue story. Nearly a decade back, when Nancy Collins' tales of her undead vampire hunter were released by whoever it was that published them before White Wolf, I had an opportunity to read a several thousand word review about the first few volumes about SB. The reviewer went to myopic lengths in his coverage about the books and the world depicted in them, finding only a few flaws with the titles. Unfortunately, the flaws listed were the kind of things that turned me off on a book instantly back then, so I didn't bother to track down the titles.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to read a small portion of a chapbook Collins wrote which starred Sonja Blue. I read only a few pages, finding it an okay read but not really my cup of tea. When I was offered a copy of Darkest Hearts, the latest (and perhaps final, more on that later) Sonja Blue tale to be penned by Collins, I accepted it, figuring it was a good as time as any to give the author another try.
I must say I was impressed by the cover of the book, and at first I was also impressed by the author's note at the beginning of the tale. The first part of the book (for some reason the book is broken into four parts, being further broken down into chapters in each part) is a reprint of an earlier work, eerily enough the very same chapbook that I'd read so many years ago. Collins writes that given how important the events of this story are to this new book, and how it's been over five years since it was last reprinted, she felt the need to include it in Darkest Hearts. At first I was very impressed by this note: there's been many a publisher I've sworn off of because they've seen fit to reprint massive portions of text in a new volume, but fail to make note of it in their ad copy or on the outside of a book, so a person only finds out about it halfway through the book, when they start to recognize entire passages.
But as I read through the book I started to be confused why Collins saw the reprinting as necessary. My confusion came from the lack of backstory in this book. Characters from previous books are mentioned and/or encountered in Darkest Hearts, but more often-than-not absolutely no detail is given about them, how they know Sonja, or the like. The review I mentioned earlier had a near-obsessive level of detail about the earlier Sonja Blue stories, and from its information I was able to understand who several of the characters were and/or their motivation. If I had not read that review, I'm sure I would be have been very upset and confused by the stream of characters who pop up in Darkest Hearts and are given so little description. Apparently Collins never learned Stan Lee's important message: "Every book is someone's first exposure to your characters. Always explain who the hero is, what they do, [who they know] and how they came to be." I don't understand why the author saw it important enough to reprint the entire chapbook for this tale, but not give even a few more sentences of detail to those important older characters who show up.
Okay, with that out of the way I'll start my review of the book proper, Part by Part.
Part 1 This part is the reprinting the Cold Turkey chapbook (and was also reworked and reprinted as part of the now out-of-print Paint It Black). Basically Sonja finds a normal human guy named Judd, who is both physically attracted to Sonja and unaware of her undead nature. Sonja falls in love with the lad at a speed which left me rather confused; while no concrete dates are given, the way it's written implies she decides she truly loves him over the course of a few days or perhaps a few weeks at most, which I just couldn't swallow.
Unfortunately The Other (think The Beast for you Vampire fans, only more intelligent) takes over, and brutalizes Judd horribly in the way that human lovers always are in vampire stories. Sonja decides that she must prevent such a thing from ever happening again, which of course leads to a horrible ending for all concerned. However, as we learn later in the book, not everything is as it appears in this part of the story.
Part 2 Here we're introduced to James Estes (a name which seems to pop up more and more in fiction I read; if someone would explain why I'd appreciate it), a human who hunts vampires. Of course, this being a vampire story published by White Wolf, the human hunter has mental problems, and has accidentally killed humans as well as vampires in his crusade against the undead; note that I didn't use the term "innocent humans," as anyone who gets fangs surgically implanted in their mouths to look like a vampire is high on my list of pollutants of the gene pool. Despite this he is a cool character, and his portions of the tale are very well-done.
Of course James and Sonja meet, and we get to here James' horrible story of how he became a vampire hunter. Sonja pulls a Buffy with a "you've been lucky, but in the war against the damned you need more than luck, you need Wa-Hoo supernatural powers like I do. Get out of the battle, live a normal life, before you get hurt." Naturally, James refuses to do so, and they team up to hunt down the vampire responsible for James' sucky life.
Speaking of Buffy, I was disturbed by the attempts at throwing in pop culture references in this book. In this part of the book we get a nod to the X-Files, and later on there are lines referring to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire (or perhaps The Bachelor; I never watched either show, so I'm uncertain). Unlike, say, a Remo Williams novel, where such bits are hilarious and appropriate, such bits fall flat on their face in Darkest Hearts, killing the mood and seeming as though they're desperate attempts to be "kewl," as the young people say.
Another thing I should mention is the annoying habit of jumping between first and third person perspective in the writing, which starts in this portion of the book. The switching back and forth annoyed me greatly.
Anyway, the chapter rolls on, with bits of part one becoming clearer. Unfortunately, the ending of this part of the book is lame, feeling like a deus ex machina as a uber-powerful character shows up just in time to save James and Sonja, then wanders off until it needs to be called on again for its amazing power later on in the book.
Part 3 is, well, not so hot. Sonja and James prepare to deal with James' lifelong enemy, who not only gets an origin story several pages long, but when he confronts Sonja he gives a pretentious, over-the-top speech so bad I thought Sonja was fighting Doctor Doom. Also like a comic, Sonja just happens to wander into a bad situation totally unrelated to her, which she thwarts, but also leaves her weak enough for something very bad to happen to James, who Sonja decides she loves. While attempting to save James Sonja calls upon the power of The Other, in a scene reminiscent of Remo Williams and his connection with Shiva. James meets a bad fate, which Sonja then tries to correct.
Also, there's the section which describes how to get damned in the universe of Sonja Blue. Apparently, if one of your parents becomes a vampire, then proceeds not only to kill people over the years but SEXUALLY MOLESTS YOU after becoming an undead, YOU CAN'T KILL THEM! Why? Because you'd damn yourself by killing your parent. Mind you, we're told later in the book that once someone becomes a vampire you can't really think of them as the person they were before, due to the evil entity within them, and you'd think killing an undead creature of the night is a good thing for any reason, but no, not according to Sonja Blue; you have to have someone else do it for you.
I'd love to put into print my exact words on how I feel about this matter, but frankly I don't think rpg.net would ever let me post another review again. Suffice it to say I think that's the stupidest thing I've read in a book for quite some time.
There's also a bit where a being which appears human to Sonja when she scans it (for lack of a better term) turns out to be a unique abomination of the damned. While I can venture a guess as to why, there's never an explanation given as to its immunity to Sonja's senses (being the only creature I know of that can mask itself from her), and Sonja seems totally unfazed when the "normal human" turns out to be a monster; given that she uses her senses to detect her prey, I think a monster which could hide itself from her would at least cause her some concern.
Also, what the Hell is up with so many stories about fetus monsters in recent years?
Part 4 The finale of the story shows the aftereffects of Sonja's attempts to save James. I don't wish to spoil it for anyone, but I will say that I thought her idea of "saving" him was very bad, didn't really save James, and seemed more an excuse (however weak) for Sonja to feel better about what happened to him, without actually saving him.
An afterward follows, in which Nancy Collins says she plans to stay away from Sonja Blue for a while; this seems kind of lame, given the set-up in the later chapters for Sonja to have a foe to fight in later books. This is followed by ads for previous White Wolf printings of Sonja Blue tales.
So, do I recommend this book? If you're not familiar with the universe of Sonja Blue already I would give it a pass, as I think you'd be too confused as you read it. Longtime fans should enjoy it, however, despite the flaws I mentioned.
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