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teresab78's review
5.0
4.5 stars!
This was imaginative and engrossing! Bas was such a great character and I found his voice and thought process interesting. There were a few times he needed to get a clue as I knew what was being said but he was oblivious. Kimolijah was so complex and felt so bad for him and his situation. There were a few spots when the tension was so overwhelming and intense, I wanted everything to hurry up and break it but I was so happy with the ending!!
This was imaginative and engrossing! Bas was such a great character and I found his voice and thought process interesting. There were a few times he needed to get a clue as I knew what was being said but he was oblivious. Kimolijah was so complex and felt so bad for him and his situation. There were a few spots when the tension was so overwhelming and intense, I wanted everything to hurry up and break it but I was so happy with the ending!!
senqin's review
5.0
★★★★★
Omg this was one wild, WILD ride where you're mostly just holding your breath waiting for the inevitable train wreck (no pun intended) to happen the entire time but also can't help but cackle at the escapades of ourdorky badass gunslinging main character whose incredibly unique narrative voice absolutely elevates the entire book onto a whole new level btw I LOVED it. Was not expecting to fly through this in one sitting. RTC
Omg this was one wild, WILD ride where you're mostly just holding your breath waiting for the inevitable train wreck (no pun intended) to happen the entire time but also can't help but cackle at the escapades of our
crtsjffrsn's review
2.0
The story and the world are extremely complex, and despite the length of the book, it never seems to fully explain itself. The actions of several of the characters don't make sense at all in context. I felt like things were just being thrown at me as a reader because they could be. And it just never really came together...
dreamerfreak's review
4.0
I adored this. It's a DSP Publications book, and so it's heavy on plot and not so much on romance, but that plot is absolutely fantastic. The reader, just like Bas, is thrown into a completely isolated little town where everything is wrong and nobody will talk about it. And there's villains and geniuses and characters who aren't good orbad and it's just a f***in' thrill ride. And funny, because Bas as a narrator is hilarious.
And yes, there is a romance subplot (Bas's absolute denial of anything, ever is great), and it's awesome, too. But seriously. World-building. Plot-twistiness. Character-awesomeness.
The only reason this book didn't get 5 stars from me is because I wanted mooooore.... I would've loved, so much, for there to be a bit more at the end when Bas and Kimo get back to civilization. I have no doubt in their eventual happy ending, but my inner fangirl beastie was hungry.
And yes, there is a romance subplot (Bas's absolute denial of anything, ever is great), and it's awesome, too. But seriously. World-building. Plot-twistiness. Character-awesomeness.
The only reason this book didn't get 5 stars from me is because I wanted mooooore.... I would've loved, so much, for there to be a bit more at the end when Bas and Kimo get back to civilization. I have no doubt in their eventual happy ending, but my inner fangirl beastie was hungry.
thistlechaser's review
5.0
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Carole Cummings is one great author.
Blue on Black is a hard book to classify. It's not fantasy, but it kind of feels a little like it. It's kind of steampunk, but not really. It's set in the old west (sort of), but it's not a western. It's got M/M in it, but romance is only a small subplot -- the main character is gay, and he has a love interest, but it's far from the focus of the story.
I'm not sure if the world was post-apocalyptic or some other sort of like-earth planet -- I'm leaning towards the latter, but it could go either way. In it there's Tech (capital T), which is sort of like... energy. Sort of. There are things like psyTech (dealing with reading minds), medTech (health/doctors), gridTech (creating and powering technology), weatherTech (controlling the weather), etc. Not everyone can do it -- far from it. People with that talent are rare.
A number of Techs go missing, and Bas, a Tracker (an agent of the government who finds things or people), sets out to find them. What he finds instead is a snakes' nest mixed with things no one of this world ever knew existed.
If this review sounds like a lot of "I don't know", that's because it is. Even by the end of the book, I was so unsure about so much... and I loved that! This is one of those cases where the author really trusts her readers -- she does not lay down every fact of the world for us, and that was great. The whole thing, from world to characters, was just so interesting!
And speaking of the characters, I suspect she must have had one of those charts to keep track of the motives of all of them.
Every character had their own motives, sometimes working with the others, sometimes at cross-purposes with them.
And the author's writing! Her technical writing, I mean. AMAZING! She uses wording and sentence length and such to build tension and set mood and it's just so wonderful. I wish more writers had that skill.
All in all, this was one enjoyable read!
Blue on Black is a hard book to classify. It's not fantasy, but it kind of feels a little like it. It's kind of steampunk, but not really. It's set in the old west (sort of), but it's not a western. It's got M/M in it, but romance is only a small subplot -- the main character is gay, and he has a love interest, but it's far from the focus of the story.
I'm not sure if the world was post-apocalyptic or some other sort of like-earth planet -- I'm leaning towards the latter, but it could go either way. In it there's Tech (capital T), which is sort of like... energy. Sort of. There are things like psyTech (dealing with reading minds), medTech (health/doctors), gridTech (creating and powering technology), weatherTech (controlling the weather), etc. Not everyone can do it -- far from it. People with that talent are rare.
A number of Techs go missing, and Bas, a Tracker (an agent of the government who finds things or people), sets out to find them. What he finds instead is a snakes' nest mixed with things no one of this world ever knew existed.
If this review sounds like a lot of "I don't know", that's because it is. Even by the end of the book, I was so unsure about so much... and I loved that! This is one of those cases where the author really trusts her readers -- she does not lay down every fact of the world for us, and that was great. The whole thing, from world to characters, was just so interesting!
And speaking of the characters, I suspect she must have had one of those charts to keep track of the motives of all of them.
Every character had their own motives, sometimes working with the others, sometimes at cross-purposes with them.
And the author's writing! Her technical writing, I mean. AMAZING! She uses wording and sentence length and such to build tension and set mood and it's just so wonderful. I wish more writers had that skill.
All in all, this was one enjoyable read!
kaje_harper's review
4.0
This is a book for fantasy lovers, full of atmospheric steampunkish-magic/tech and imaginative world building. The main characters are great, and the action is tense and exciting.
Bas is working undercover, looking for the killer of a young psionic gridTech genius whose charred corpse was found in his lab, and whose notebooks and journals documented a brilliant young man gone too soon. Bas has studied Kimolijah's writing, to the point where he feels like he knows and mourns the dead man. So he has seriously mixed feelings when he makes it to the outlaw-suspect's remote border town, and finds Kimo alive, and apparently, possibly even willingly, helping his captor build astonishing gridTech inventions.
It's Bas's job, as a tracker, to sort out the truth, rescue any captive Techs, and restore justice. But in this small criminal empire, run by one half-crazy Baron with a bunch of hardened men, it's hard to figure out who is on what side. It doesn't help that there seem to be far more than just two sides. It also doesn't help that unknown alien creatures walk (and fly) in the area, that Kimo will talk only in obscure riddles, or that Bas's infatuation for a dead man is turning into a serious hard-on for a potentially insane or criminal live one.
This is a slow, slow burn story with a lot of details. Both the action and the characters take a long time to unravel, and I spent the first half of the book alternately thrilled, charmed and baffled. Had I read straight through (and paid better attention) I think this would have been a 5-star read. But, because I didn't quite make that effort, some of the details of who among the wide cast of secondary characters was subject to whom, or had what abilities, or what past, escaped me. For that reason the climactic action, thrilling as it was, still confused me slightly.
On the other hand, I adored Bas, and Kimo, and felt for both of them in the impossibilities of their situation. I was invested in their safety, and their attraction. I definitely wanted a happy ending for them. The book does provide a HFN, in beautifully-chosen words that let me set it down with a sigh. I love this author's prose, and recommend this for anyone who likes detailed fantasy or paranormal, with a side of slow-burn romance, and great characters.
Bas is working undercover, looking for the killer of a young psionic gridTech genius whose charred corpse was found in his lab, and whose notebooks and journals documented a brilliant young man gone too soon. Bas has studied Kimolijah's writing, to the point where he feels like he knows and mourns the dead man. So he has seriously mixed feelings when he makes it to the outlaw-suspect's remote border town, and finds Kimo alive, and apparently, possibly even willingly, helping his captor build astonishing gridTech inventions.
It's Bas's job, as a tracker, to sort out the truth, rescue any captive Techs, and restore justice. But in this small criminal empire, run by one half-crazy Baron with a bunch of hardened men, it's hard to figure out who is on what side. It doesn't help that there seem to be far more than just two sides. It also doesn't help that unknown alien creatures walk (and fly) in the area, that Kimo will talk only in obscure riddles, or that Bas's infatuation for a dead man is turning into a serious hard-on for a potentially insane or criminal live one.
This is a slow, slow burn story with a lot of details. Both the action and the characters take a long time to unravel, and I spent the first half of the book alternately thrilled, charmed and baffled. Had I read straight through (and paid better attention) I think this would have been a 5-star read. But, because I didn't quite make that effort, some of the details of who among the wide cast of secondary characters was subject to whom, or had what abilities, or what past, escaped me. For that reason the climactic action, thrilling as it was, still confused me slightly.
On the other hand, I adored Bas, and Kimo, and felt for both of them in the impossibilities of their situation. I was invested in their safety, and their attraction. I definitely wanted a happy ending for them. The book does provide a HFN, in beautifully-chosen words that let me set it down with a sigh. I love this author's prose, and recommend this for anyone who likes detailed fantasy or paranormal, with a side of slow-burn romance, and great characters.
the_novel_approach's review
5.0
If ever there was a book written that deserves to be an illustrated novel, it’s Carole Cummings’ Blue on Black, an alternate universe, twisted history, sci-fi/fantasy/steampunkish feast for the imagination and senses that sends readers on a synesthetic journey to an Old West-like place that, had it ever existed in reality, would have changed our own world dramatically.
Blue on Black is a story that’s not so much woven together from beginning to end as it is deconstructed and put back together again. What I mean by that is the plot and characters, and how they relate to each other, are constructed of a series of knots at the outset that must be untangled in order for us to see the “big picture” resolve itself in the end. Everything in this novel is layered—the colors, the characters, the setting, the Tech, the grandiose scheme which has brought the outlier Stanslo’s Bridge and its robber baron, Petra Stanslo, to the attention of the Directorate—with a subtlety that makes you look just that little bit deeper to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Who are enemies, who are allies, and who is simply looking out for number one? When does servitude represent freedom and freedom, servitude? It’s a web we’re snared in from the start, and we must decipher it right along with our intrepid hero.
Stanslo is both the Pandora’s Box and the Prometheus in the novel, dictator of a place where life often means death, where language is mind control, where double-think and its controlled insanity is delivered with a feral grin. Stanslo has opened up his twisted mind and spilled out an insane amount of narcissism upon his world, using people as leverage to oppress and fear to motivate them to carry out his plans, leaving the reader wondering where is their hope. He is predator and scavenger, exploiter and extortionist, both law and lawlessness, and he has stolen the spark (a spark he’s having trouble harnessing, by the way) necessary to unleash a technology upon humankind that humankind will not appreciate. Rather than a tool of progress, the technology in this novel is the agent of greed and lust and evil, and there seems to be no way to stop Stanslo before his delusions of grandeur give free reign to unchecked horror.
This is where Bartholomew Eisen becomes integral to the story. Bas is a Grade 3 Tracker with the Directorate of the Consolidated Territories, which is a fancy way of saying he can not only sense Tech but can taste its colors, and by taste, can tell what sort of Tech a man or woman possesses. He’s been assigned to track a missing weatherTech, a case which ends up intersecting with another, a murder case he’s been investigating involving one of the most promising minds in gridTech ever to be born, Kimolijah Adani, and Kimolijah’s father Ajamil. And this is how Bas ends up in Stanslo’s Bridge posing as a gunslinger called Jakob Barstow.
Narrated with no small amount of sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek humor, not to mention a flair that invokes comic book storytelling, Blue on Black is motion and movement in not only in its crafting but in the very magic of its Tech. Kimo’s power is all about the kinetic energy that flows through and from him, which draws all manner of attention to him, not to mention attracts the bad to him like a negative to a positive charge. “Everything that leaks from the Bruise goes after gridstream,” and poor Kimo is the target of the worst of it.
The Bruise itself is a place, a contusion in the skin of this world from which mutant beasts escape, a place where Nature has been made wild and toxic, a foe of the humans who, in all its karmic glory, are the ones guilty of corrupting it in the first place. It is the place that has offered Stanslo the means to control and the method to compel his madness and incite his avarice, jealousy, suspicion, and obsession with his most prized possession, playing god in his own little corner of hell. But, as with all oppressors, a day of reckoning awaits, and it’s one of the book’s greatest and most satisfying ironies when it happens.
There is action and suspense and danger between the covers of this novel, and while there is something building between Bas and Kimo amidst the destruction, Blue on Black is not a love story, though it is the story of two men who don’t know they’re falling into something that could be love, and doing it quite humorously, I might add. Really, how could they know, though, when one of them is in denial of his feelings, and the other is so full of anger and distrust that there isn’t much room for anything else? You’ve heard the idiom about someone having a burr under his saddle (or in other ::ahem:: delicate areas)? Well, the burrs in this book aren’t figurative, they are literal, and they play far too significant a role in Kimo’s life for him not to be more than a bit prickly. Plus, it’s hard to know love in the presence of fear, and it’s also rather difficult to recognize it when fear and love present some of the same physical symptoms—another lovely irony that.
Blue on Black is yet another outstanding novel by this author. I have had the pleasure of reading all her published work to date and can say without reservation that each of her books is an experience that may make you think a little harder, but the payoff in the end is always well worth the journey.
When you’re in the mood for an Alt U, Sci-Fi, Action/Adventure trip into an (un)reality of (un)imaginably fantastic proportions, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Blue on Black.
Blue on Black is a story that’s not so much woven together from beginning to end as it is deconstructed and put back together again. What I mean by that is the plot and characters, and how they relate to each other, are constructed of a series of knots at the outset that must be untangled in order for us to see the “big picture” resolve itself in the end. Everything in this novel is layered—the colors, the characters, the setting, the Tech, the grandiose scheme which has brought the outlier Stanslo’s Bridge and its robber baron, Petra Stanslo, to the attention of the Directorate—with a subtlety that makes you look just that little bit deeper to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Who are enemies, who are allies, and who is simply looking out for number one? When does servitude represent freedom and freedom, servitude? It’s a web we’re snared in from the start, and we must decipher it right along with our intrepid hero.
Stanslo is both the Pandora’s Box and the Prometheus in the novel, dictator of a place where life often means death, where language is mind control, where double-think and its controlled insanity is delivered with a feral grin. Stanslo has opened up his twisted mind and spilled out an insane amount of narcissism upon his world, using people as leverage to oppress and fear to motivate them to carry out his plans, leaving the reader wondering where is their hope. He is predator and scavenger, exploiter and extortionist, both law and lawlessness, and he has stolen the spark (a spark he’s having trouble harnessing, by the way) necessary to unleash a technology upon humankind that humankind will not appreciate. Rather than a tool of progress, the technology in this novel is the agent of greed and lust and evil, and there seems to be no way to stop Stanslo before his delusions of grandeur give free reign to unchecked horror.
This is where Bartholomew Eisen becomes integral to the story. Bas is a Grade 3 Tracker with the Directorate of the Consolidated Territories, which is a fancy way of saying he can not only sense Tech but can taste its colors, and by taste, can tell what sort of Tech a man or woman possesses. He’s been assigned to track a missing weatherTech, a case which ends up intersecting with another, a murder case he’s been investigating involving one of the most promising minds in gridTech ever to be born, Kimolijah Adani, and Kimolijah’s father Ajamil. And this is how Bas ends up in Stanslo’s Bridge posing as a gunslinger called Jakob Barstow.
Narrated with no small amount of sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek humor, not to mention a flair that invokes comic book storytelling, Blue on Black is motion and movement in not only in its crafting but in the very magic of its Tech. Kimo’s power is all about the kinetic energy that flows through and from him, which draws all manner of attention to him, not to mention attracts the bad to him like a negative to a positive charge. “Everything that leaks from the Bruise goes after gridstream,” and poor Kimo is the target of the worst of it.
The Bruise itself is a place, a contusion in the skin of this world from which mutant beasts escape, a place where Nature has been made wild and toxic, a foe of the humans who, in all its karmic glory, are the ones guilty of corrupting it in the first place. It is the place that has offered Stanslo the means to control and the method to compel his madness and incite his avarice, jealousy, suspicion, and obsession with his most prized possession, playing god in his own little corner of hell. But, as with all oppressors, a day of reckoning awaits, and it’s one of the book’s greatest and most satisfying ironies when it happens.
There is action and suspense and danger between the covers of this novel, and while there is something building between Bas and Kimo amidst the destruction, Blue on Black is not a love story, though it is the story of two men who don’t know they’re falling into something that could be love, and doing it quite humorously, I might add. Really, how could they know, though, when one of them is in denial of his feelings, and the other is so full of anger and distrust that there isn’t much room for anything else? You’ve heard the idiom about someone having a burr under his saddle (or in other ::ahem:: delicate areas)? Well, the burrs in this book aren’t figurative, they are literal, and they play far too significant a role in Kimo’s life for him not to be more than a bit prickly. Plus, it’s hard to know love in the presence of fear, and it’s also rather difficult to recognize it when fear and love present some of the same physical symptoms—another lovely irony that.
Blue on Black is yet another outstanding novel by this author. I have had the pleasure of reading all her published work to date and can say without reservation that each of her books is an experience that may make you think a little harder, but the payoff in the end is always well worth the journey.
When you’re in the mood for an Alt U, Sci-Fi, Action/Adventure trip into an (un)reality of (un)imaginably fantastic proportions, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Blue on Black.
see_sadie_read's review
4.0
3.5
I think it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. I adored the characters here. I liked the snarky narrative style. There is some genuine humor that really colors Bas' personality. I appreciated the interesting world and tech. I liked the slow burn in the relationship. (And it is slooooow, people. There are only two mild sex scenes in the whole 380 pages.) But the book is just too long. The middle drags on and on without anything that significantly moves the plot along happening. It's just more of the angry, sarcastic interactions between the same characters, which are fun but not enough to keep a story afloat. I enjoyed the story. Don't let me sound as if I didn't, but I think it could have been improved on and I'd have enjoyed it even more.
I think it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. I adored the characters here. I liked the snarky narrative style. There is some genuine humor that really colors Bas' personality. I appreciated the interesting world and tech. I liked the slow burn in the relationship. (And it is slooooow, people. There are only two mild sex scenes in the whole 380 pages.) But the book is just too long. The middle drags on and on without anything that significantly moves the plot along happening. It's just more of the angry, sarcastic interactions between the same characters, which are fun but not enough to keep a story afloat. I enjoyed the story. Don't let me sound as if I didn't, but I think it could have been improved on and I'd have enjoyed it even more.
mrella's review
Thank god for the blurb, or I would have been lost forever in the first measly 4% of the book (that's 17 pages of the most itsy-bitsy-tiniest text I've ever seen).
I am rating only the part that I read, that same part that left me completely disoriented and feeling "slow" because I am not ....smart enough? proficient in English enough? to keep up with the author's imagination.
I am rating only the part that I read, that same part that left me completely disoriented and feeling "slow" because I am not ....smart enough? proficient in English enough? to keep up with the author's imagination.