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songwind's review against another edition
5.0
With Blue Blazes, Chuck Wendig takes the basic concept of urban fantasy and moves it into the realms of crime fiction.
The setting is similar to our world - but during a big project the New York City Sandhogs opened up a set of caverns that turned out to be some sort of underworld. It's truly an underworld in the most classic sense - the spirits of the dead wander through it, monsters inhabit it, and the laws of nature don't quite apply the same way.
A criminal syndicate, known simply as the Operation, has taken over most interaction with "Downstairs." In particular, they control the trade in Cerulean, a powder that grants strength and endurance, and strips away the blinders of regular life to allow you to see the supernatural for what it is.
Mookie Pearl is a highly trusted and effective soldier for this mob. He's also approximately the size of a truck and ugly as sin. Mookie runs several crews of "mole men," the miners that find and extract Cerulean. Mookie's also got a daughter. Unfortunately, he wasn't a very good dad, and his little girl wants to follow him into the family business by setting up a competing firm.
She shows up to warn him that things are about to change. Something big is going down, and the leader of the Organization is dying. The chaos that ensues makes up the bulk of the plot of The Blue Blazes.
The crime novel/fantasy adventure aspect of the book is excellent. It's well paced, exciting, and has a good mixture of humor, action and wonder. The real meat of this book, though, is about relationships. Friendships, alliances, hatreds, but most of all parental. Mookie and his daughter play a starring role, but there's also some commentary in there between the Boss and his grandson, Mookie and old/current friends, and even between enemies.
I feel like Wendig's prose was up a notch from his already-excellent earlier work. All in all, a truly excellent book.
The setting is similar to our world - but during a big project the New York City Sandhogs opened up a set of caverns that turned out to be some sort of underworld. It's truly an underworld in the most classic sense - the spirits of the dead wander through it, monsters inhabit it, and the laws of nature don't quite apply the same way.
A criminal syndicate, known simply as the Operation, has taken over most interaction with "Downstairs." In particular, they control the trade in Cerulean, a powder that grants strength and endurance, and strips away the blinders of regular life to allow you to see the supernatural for what it is.
Mookie Pearl is a highly trusted and effective soldier for this mob. He's also approximately the size of a truck and ugly as sin. Mookie runs several crews of "mole men," the miners that find and extract Cerulean. Mookie's also got a daughter. Unfortunately, he wasn't a very good dad, and his little girl wants to follow him into the family business by setting up a competing firm.
She shows up to warn him that things are about to change. Something big is going down, and the leader of the Organization is dying. The chaos that ensues makes up the bulk of the plot of The Blue Blazes.
The crime novel/fantasy adventure aspect of the book is excellent. It's well paced, exciting, and has a good mixture of humor, action and wonder. The real meat of this book, though, is about relationships. Friendships, alliances, hatreds, but most of all parental. Mookie and his daughter play a starring role, but there's also some commentary in there between the Boss and his grandson, Mookie and old/current friends, and even between enemies.
I feel like Wendig's prose was up a notch from his already-excellent earlier work. All in all, a truly excellent book.
geekwayne's review against another edition
4.0
'The Blue Blazes' by Chuck Wendig stars a most unusual character named Mookie Pearl. As an urban fantasy, I quite liked it.
Mookie Pearl is not exactly a good guy, but you'd rather have him on your side than against you. He's built like a tank and not afraid of the monsters that lurk under his city. He works for the mob, and the main boss is stepping down. The secession plan has his grandson taking over, but that plan goes haywire when the grandson is found dead, and Mookie's estranged daughter is standing over the body. Now Mookie has to try to clear her name, or kill her, and stop whatever weird thing is starting to happen in the supernatural underworld. This will lead him to team up with the living human Sandhogs building the subway tunnels, and the dead members of a town called Daisycutter. Mookie plows through the story like a formidable bulldozer.
In spite of that, I actually cared about the big guy. I also found the world of this book to be interesting. The book moves along at a good pace and is well written. I can recommend it if your taste runs toward urban fantasy and lots of action.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Angry Robot and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
Mookie Pearl is not exactly a good guy, but you'd rather have him on your side than against you. He's built like a tank and not afraid of the monsters that lurk under his city. He works for the mob, and the main boss is stepping down. The secession plan has his grandson taking over, but that plan goes haywire when the grandson is found dead, and Mookie's estranged daughter is standing over the body. Now Mookie has to try to clear her name, or kill her, and stop whatever weird thing is starting to happen in the supernatural underworld. This will lead him to team up with the living human Sandhogs building the subway tunnels, and the dead members of a town called Daisycutter. Mookie plows through the story like a formidable bulldozer.
In spite of that, I actually cared about the big guy. I also found the world of this book to be interesting. The book moves along at a good pace and is well written. I can recommend it if your taste runs toward urban fantasy and lots of action.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Angry Robot and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
Mookie Pearl has been working for the Organization for most of his adult life. When his boss reveals he has terminal cancer, who should show up just in time to exploit that than Mookie's own daughter? And who is the mysterious Candlefly that has shown up to help The Boss in his hour of need? And what do the creatures of the Underworld have to say about the situation?
It's hard to summarize a novel that packs so many great ideas between two covers. The easiest way I can think of to pitch The Blue Blazes to people is to say "Neverwhere Noir."
The Blue Blazes is the latest of Chuck Wendig's innovative urban fantasies. The main character, Mookie Pearl, is a thick-headed mountain of a man working for the Organization, the criminal syndicate that controls NYC at street level. Below the streets is another story entirely, for that is the Underworld, the territory of Gobbos, Roach-Rats, Snakefaces, and things a thousand times worse.
The Blue Blazes of the title is the street name for a drug that lets the user see beneath the veil, revealing half and halfs and other mystical creatures for what they are. It goes a long way toward explaining the usual urban fantasy conceit of monsters living among us more or less undetected.
This isn't your grandmother's urban fantasy. Instead of lightly flirting with the hardboiled noir genre, The Blue Blazes has it's way with it hard and rough in the filthy alley behind the porno theater. Mookie's no white knight. He's a thug and a murderer and does what he has to do. He actually reminds me of Richard Stark's Parker, only with more muscles and much less brain. The conflict between Mookie and Nora is what keeps the book rocketing forward, even when everyone's having a chat.
The situation looks like one of the standard criminal fiction plots at first: the boss is going down and a lot of people are wondering who is going to fill the void. Will it be Nora, Mookie's estranged daughter? Will it be the Boss's grandson? Will it be Candlefly?
The mythology of the world Wendig has created is unique: there are no vampires, werewolves, or women wanting to have sex with vampires or werewolves. There are cities of the dead in the Underworld but they aren't populated by zombies. I love the concept of the pigments and the powers they confer. I could go on for paragraphs about the Hungry Ones, the Naga, the gangs, soul cages, etc.
Mookie muscles his way through the plot like a meat-cleaver-wielding battering ram. Much like the fabled Timex, he takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. By the time the Blue Blazes was over, I was simultaneously dismayed that the journey was completed but also somehow relieved.
4.5 stars. I want more Mookie!
It's hard to summarize a novel that packs so many great ideas between two covers. The easiest way I can think of to pitch The Blue Blazes to people is to say "Neverwhere Noir."
The Blue Blazes is the latest of Chuck Wendig's innovative urban fantasies. The main character, Mookie Pearl, is a thick-headed mountain of a man working for the Organization, the criminal syndicate that controls NYC at street level. Below the streets is another story entirely, for that is the Underworld, the territory of Gobbos, Roach-Rats, Snakefaces, and things a thousand times worse.
The Blue Blazes of the title is the street name for a drug that lets the user see beneath the veil, revealing half and halfs and other mystical creatures for what they are. It goes a long way toward explaining the usual urban fantasy conceit of monsters living among us more or less undetected.
This isn't your grandmother's urban fantasy. Instead of lightly flirting with the hardboiled noir genre, The Blue Blazes has it's way with it hard and rough in the filthy alley behind the porno theater. Mookie's no white knight. He's a thug and a murderer and does what he has to do. He actually reminds me of Richard Stark's Parker, only with more muscles and much less brain. The conflict between Mookie and Nora is what keeps the book rocketing forward, even when everyone's having a chat.
The situation looks like one of the standard criminal fiction plots at first: the boss is going down and a lot of people are wondering who is going to fill the void. Will it be Nora, Mookie's estranged daughter? Will it be the Boss's grandson? Will it be Candlefly?
The mythology of the world Wendig has created is unique: there are no vampires, werewolves, or women wanting to have sex with vampires or werewolves. There are cities of the dead in the Underworld but they aren't populated by zombies. I love the concept of the pigments and the powers they confer. I could go on for paragraphs about the Hungry Ones, the Naga, the gangs, soul cages, etc.
Mookie muscles his way through the plot like a meat-cleaver-wielding battering ram. Much like the fabled Timex, he takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. By the time the Blue Blazes was over, I was simultaneously dismayed that the journey was completed but also somehow relieved.
4.5 stars. I want more Mookie!
archergal's review against another edition
3.0
I listened to this book while I was painting my bedroom. It was an excellent book for that! It was interesting enough to make the time pass quickly, but not so complex that it distracted me from the task at hand.
I was a little disappointed though. I kept imagining comic book characters & settings while I was listening. Nothing wrong with that, per se. It was just a little distracting. The motivation of Mookie Pearl's daughter annoyed me too.
The whole story was just a little thinner than I expected, I guess. But that made it good for painting.
I was a little disappointed though. I kept imagining comic book characters & settings while I was listening. Nothing wrong with that, per se. It was just a little distracting. The motivation of Mookie Pearl's daughter annoyed me too.
The whole story was just a little thinner than I expected, I guess. But that made it good for painting.
lindaunconventionalbookworms's review against another edition
5.0
*I received a free ARC of The Blue Blazes from Angry Robot via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*
The Blue Blazes is set in a weird-ass version of New York. Dark, haunting with the perfect anti-hero, I was taken on one of the best rides of my life!
This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews
The Blue Blazes is set in a weird-ass version of New York. Dark, haunting with the perfect anti-hero, I was taken on one of the best rides of my life!
This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews
amberunmasked's review against another edition
5.0
Blue Blazes
Cerulean, Vermilion, Veridian, Ochre, and Caput Mortuum. These are the Five Occulted Pigments of THE BLUE BLAZES; each contains unique properties and have a multitude of street slang monikers. Cerulean blue, the Peacock Powder is the central focus of drug trafficking in the supernatural urban world envisioned by Chuck Wendig. Cerulean produces a PCP style high that makes a user ignore pain and feel overall good vibrations until of course it starts to wear off and makes a person feel like hardened crap. The blue also opens up the eyes of a human to see what’s really going on and notice the nuances that people thought to be ordinary are really demons, monsters, hybrid creatures or subterranean elder gods.
There are familiar tropes of paranormal fiction that fans of HELLBOY/BPRD or HARRY POTTER can recognize in BLUE BLAZES and it’s all mixed with the action, fighting, escaping, and personalities of an 80s Bruce Willis film. This is a world where there are humans who are blind to the monsters and the supernatural unless of course they get high on the blue pigment which gives them the blue blazes.
John Atticus Oakes, a cartographer of the Great Below provides the narrative of each chapter until the final one to cleverly educate the reader on all of the details about the cultures and subcultures of the classist rule of the underworld. He’s not even mentioned as a character by anyone else until halfway through the book. Oakes is a narrator that has enough insight to seem omniscient but his journal entries are brief and feel natural.
The monsters read from a DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS manual with plenty of their own races and classes. Some stay up top with the humans in regular interactions of life and crime; if they aren’t up top, these monster breeds and even some half-breeds have neighborhoods in the three realms of the underworld as well. The half-breeds aren’t welcome much like the “squibs” of J.K. Rowling’s Potter. Wendig provided an answer to a question that was in my mind: What are the breeding rules of the monsters, humans and half-breeds? Cartographer Oakes eventually tells it: since monsters appear in human form, they are capable of impregnating human women but it’s unlikely the human would survive the birth. These details are vital to any storytelling as comic book readers can tell you. There are great debates about how Lois Lane could possibly carry Superman’s baby or whether the Thing can get an erection and have sex with his non-mutated girlfriend. Readers are curious, especially when they walk into a massive world that so easily immerses them like Wendig’s supernatural New York City metro area.
Wendig doesn’t mask influences like the world of Mignola’s Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense which is based in Newark, New Jersey and features a hulking brute protagonist going up against a variety of legendary creatures. At times, BLUE BLAZES did feel too derivative, almost like BPRD fan fiction, but the secondary characters and the criminal underbelly pull it out of that mire. Wendig doesn’t use government conspiracies or bank on fictionalized versions of real historical figures. He places his star, Mookie Pearl, a human tank, not a monster, into the supernatural Mafia where people might be humanoid snake breeds of Naga or the working class and is always under threat of goblin attacks. One of my favorite storytelling mechanisms is that Wendig created several different gangs including monster gangs and human gangs and he explained the quirky theme of each one.
One thing is certain about the way Wendig describes a scene: he can show the perspective of any character in an environment and point out how what is grungy and dank to one person like bits of broken glass and twisted metals placed, piled, and mortared, is what others use to create beauty in the surroundings. He bops around the points of view without using chapter breaks if every perspective is the same scene. I never once felt lost when he did.
In one of Wendig’s previous successful series, the cover to BLACKBIRDS was pitted against Seanan McGuire’s DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON in a fun cover design contest. When you see the cover for DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON and then read Wendig’s descriptions of the all female rockabilly gang, The Get-Em-Girls, you can spot the similarities particularly in the main female lead of BLUE BLAZES Nora Pearl, Mookie’s rebellious lethal daughter who dons a streetwalker version of a schoolgirl uniform. The Wendig/McGuire camaraderie is easily spotted on their Twitter interactions.
Other than BLUE BLAZES feeling unusually long for a rapid-fire action book, I actually had only one major gripe. Wendig is a writer who can easily come up with 80 different ways to describe testicles or the smell of rancid meats so it’s with the knowledge of his super-wordslinging abilities that I am bothered by the banal use of the word to describe Mookie Pearl’s shirt as a “wifebeater” in the opening pages. I realize this word came into regular American usage to connote the trashy mobile home fashion of a Budweiser drunk who would find no other way to fester through life unless he is abusing weaker human beings. Knowing Wendig’s work as I do, I am completely confident that he could have taken a higher road to describe the shirt of Mookie Pearl rather than choosing consciously to use a word that is the “N-word” of domestic abuse survivors. Wendig doesn’t throw around the N-word or “gay” or any other slur unless it comes from the dialog of a character who would use it. In his narratives, I expect better consideration because it comes from him not Mookie nor the cartographer nor a bottom-dwelling Hell pig of the underworld. Mookie is a huge brawny man described as a Paul Bunyon who is quiet, enjoys certain fine quality eccentricities in food, can’t rebound from his failed family life, and is content being the muscle for the people who make decisions. Somewhere in there, Wendig could describe the white sleeveless shirt that exudes the odors of sweat, salt and salami to give readers the visual they would want to imagine Mookie Pearl in their heads.
Cerulean, Vermilion, Veridian, Ochre, and Caput Mortuum. These are the Five Occulted Pigments of THE BLUE BLAZES; each contains unique properties and have a multitude of street slang monikers. Cerulean blue, the Peacock Powder is the central focus of drug trafficking in the supernatural urban world envisioned by Chuck Wendig. Cerulean produces a PCP style high that makes a user ignore pain and feel overall good vibrations until of course it starts to wear off and makes a person feel like hardened crap. The blue also opens up the eyes of a human to see what’s really going on and notice the nuances that people thought to be ordinary are really demons, monsters, hybrid creatures or subterranean elder gods.
There are familiar tropes of paranormal fiction that fans of HELLBOY/BPRD or HARRY POTTER can recognize in BLUE BLAZES and it’s all mixed with the action, fighting, escaping, and personalities of an 80s Bruce Willis film. This is a world where there are humans who are blind to the monsters and the supernatural unless of course they get high on the blue pigment which gives them the blue blazes.
John Atticus Oakes, a cartographer of the Great Below provides the narrative of each chapter until the final one to cleverly educate the reader on all of the details about the cultures and subcultures of the classist rule of the underworld. He’s not even mentioned as a character by anyone else until halfway through the book. Oakes is a narrator that has enough insight to seem omniscient but his journal entries are brief and feel natural.
The monsters read from a DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS manual with plenty of their own races and classes. Some stay up top with the humans in regular interactions of life and crime; if they aren’t up top, these monster breeds and even some half-breeds have neighborhoods in the three realms of the underworld as well. The half-breeds aren’t welcome much like the “squibs” of J.K. Rowling’s Potter. Wendig provided an answer to a question that was in my mind: What are the breeding rules of the monsters, humans and half-breeds? Cartographer Oakes eventually tells it: since monsters appear in human form, they are capable of impregnating human women but it’s unlikely the human would survive the birth. These details are vital to any storytelling as comic book readers can tell you. There are great debates about how Lois Lane could possibly carry Superman’s baby or whether the Thing can get an erection and have sex with his non-mutated girlfriend. Readers are curious, especially when they walk into a massive world that so easily immerses them like Wendig’s supernatural New York City metro area.
Wendig doesn’t mask influences like the world of Mignola’s Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense which is based in Newark, New Jersey and features a hulking brute protagonist going up against a variety of legendary creatures. At times, BLUE BLAZES did feel too derivative, almost like BPRD fan fiction, but the secondary characters and the criminal underbelly pull it out of that mire. Wendig doesn’t use government conspiracies or bank on fictionalized versions of real historical figures. He places his star, Mookie Pearl, a human tank, not a monster, into the supernatural Mafia where people might be humanoid snake breeds of Naga or the working class and is always under threat of goblin attacks. One of my favorite storytelling mechanisms is that Wendig created several different gangs including monster gangs and human gangs and he explained the quirky theme of each one.
One thing is certain about the way Wendig describes a scene: he can show the perspective of any character in an environment and point out how what is grungy and dank to one person like bits of broken glass and twisted metals placed, piled, and mortared, is what others use to create beauty in the surroundings. He bops around the points of view without using chapter breaks if every perspective is the same scene. I never once felt lost when he did.
In one of Wendig’s previous successful series, the cover to BLACKBIRDS was pitted against Seanan McGuire’s DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON in a fun cover design contest. When you see the cover for DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON and then read Wendig’s descriptions of the all female rockabilly gang, The Get-Em-Girls, you can spot the similarities particularly in the main female lead of BLUE BLAZES Nora Pearl, Mookie’s rebellious lethal daughter who dons a streetwalker version of a schoolgirl uniform. The Wendig/McGuire camaraderie is easily spotted on their Twitter interactions.
Other than BLUE BLAZES feeling unusually long for a rapid-fire action book, I actually had only one major gripe. Wendig is a writer who can easily come up with 80 different ways to describe testicles or the smell of rancid meats so it’s with the knowledge of his super-wordslinging abilities that I am bothered by the banal use of the word to describe Mookie Pearl’s shirt as a “wifebeater” in the opening pages. I realize this word came into regular American usage to connote the trashy mobile home fashion of a Budweiser drunk who would find no other way to fester through life unless he is abusing weaker human beings. Knowing Wendig’s work as I do, I am completely confident that he could have taken a higher road to describe the shirt of Mookie Pearl rather than choosing consciously to use a word that is the “N-word” of domestic abuse survivors. Wendig doesn’t throw around the N-word or “gay” or any other slur unless it comes from the dialog of a character who would use it. In his narratives, I expect better consideration because it comes from him not Mookie nor the cartographer nor a bottom-dwelling Hell pig of the underworld. Mookie is a huge brawny man described as a Paul Bunyon who is quiet, enjoys certain fine quality eccentricities in food, can’t rebound from his failed family life, and is content being the muscle for the people who make decisions. Somewhere in there, Wendig could describe the white sleeveless shirt that exudes the odors of sweat, salt and salami to give readers the visual they would want to imagine Mookie Pearl in their heads.
htb2050's review against another edition
1.0
The book had a lot of potential but it was ruined by subpar writing. There were not enough complete sentences. That writing style is good for a few parts but when the whole book is writtenike that then one quickly loses interest.
markmtz's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this mash-up of organized crime and Lovecraftian horror, but it's the characters that shine in this novel--Mookie Pearl, a big bad who loves his daughter Nora, no matter what; supporting characters with heart like Skelly, Burnsy and Werth; and some really nasty denizens of the Underworld.