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Summary: Science Fiction or psychological thriller -- Mosely genius..
Review: I picked up Walter Mosley's "Blue Light" based on my past experience with the Easy Rawlins mystery series, and knew immediately this was a very different tale. While reading this very involving and disturbing novel, I wondered what exactly type of story this was...at times, only the interest in how it would turn out kept me going. How well-worth it...what an epiphany at the end. Mr. Mosely owes a bit of a nod to Joyce Carol Oates in that both authors dare to look inside of insidious and dangerous characters and find something sympathetic, scary and very compelling. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Mosley in midst of a metamorphosis
Review: Before I purchased this book I took a look at the reviews of other Amazon customers and momentarily thought of passing on this Mosley novel. However, based on the strength of Mosley's past work I ordered Blue Light. This was definitely the right thing to do. Blue Light read like free prose and forced me to gaze at Mosley's vision through un-Easy eyes. Although I am a rabid fan of his Rawlins series this book is vastly different and indicates that Mosley is in the midst of a metamorphosis. Fans of the Rawlins series should suspend their expectations of another riveting Easy story and focus on a new cast of characters that are just as riveting. Mosley is obviously exploring outside of his Easy Rawlins series and doing a spectacular job of it. I am eagerly awaiting a continuation that will reveal the fate of the Blues, Chance, & the Gray Man. I hope that you as a reader will not pigeonhole Mosley into being just another "mystery" writer, but support him in his exploration of the myriad of stories he can tell.
Rating: 
Summary: God Aweful
Review: Simply, a terribly written book. It has a shallow plot, flat characters and no style. His descriptions of people are often late, and tend to consist of someone's skin colour. And that's all. The story moves ok at first but degrades into the most uninteresting chase/camping trip in the history of the world. The ideas presented are soft, touchy feely sort of "the soul is love" type crap. Seems like it's a rip off of The Celestine Prophecy, which isn't something anyone should want to rip off in the first place.
Rating: 
Summary: Deeply talented author-- shallow plot
Review: The only thing that kept me reading "Blue Light" until the end was Mosley's general skill as a writer. His style reminded me of two SF greats-- Octavia E. Butler and Tad Willams. Hardly faint praise.But Mosley forgot to include the one thing these two luminaries always have in their books in abundance and that is scope. The events of the book don't really seem to change anything; they only concern a handful of characters. Certainly the reader doesn't feel, as with Butler, that the fabric of society, even the nature of humanity, will be changed by the blue light. Outside the concerns of the main characters, it is business as usual for Planet Earth. While it is irkome to think of what this book could have been with a plot constructin equal to Mosley's writing talents, I have to applaud him for making the foray into science fiction. The genre definitely needs more ethnic diversity in its authors. I hope Mr. Mosley will try again-- this time with a better plot!
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Summary: Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Thriller, Mystery....Maybe????!!!!
Review: I, too, like so many others, didn't know what to expect when I first started reading Blue Light, but I must be honest and admit that overall I wasn't disappointed. It's definitely a different kind of read for me, but it had enough of the elements that I look for in a book to keep me reading, i.e. action, drama, suspense, chaos-confusion. I particularly liked the spin Mosley put on the ending. I found myself laughing at my attempt to make it all make sense when I didn't have to. Once you read Blue Light you will know what I mean. At first this book was a stretch for me but I thoroughly enjoyed the journey in the end. Thanks Walter Mosley!
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Summary: BLUE LIGHT--an imitation of SCORPION SHARDS?
Review: I bought this book because it seemed to remind me of a book I'd read long ago...and BLUE LIGHT is, indeed, suspiciously similiar to the plot of the SCORPION SHARDS trilogy by Neal Shusterman. With a few superficial differences--change the name of the "Thief of Souls" into the "Grey Man", change the number of people/things recieving the Star-shards...there's way too much similiarity. If you're going to read one of these 2 books, definitely check out SCORPION SHARDS by Neal Shusterman first.
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Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: I bought this book based on backcover info. What a disappointment. It's not just that it is poorly written and unimaginative. Unless you are into sleazily written sex and gore, you won't find much to hold your interest. There is nothing new here. Just tired, sorry, second rate prose, thinly drawn characters in a porno-lite storyline. Save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: nice try, but incomplete
Review: It is very hard for an author to leave one genre which they are very good at and try another. Walter Mosley has done just that with Blue Light. It his attempt to write science fiction. As a whole, it is not a bad job. However, he does not finish what he starts. The concept is that a group on Northern Californians have their lives changed when an extra-terrestrial blue light touches them. Even people that have not had been touched by the blue light are also changed. The narrarator is not touched by the light, but is transformed through a blood transfusion. Mosley spends a great deal of time building his characters and the story line. His antagonist is also changed by the blue light, but not in a good way. He spends his time killing the transformed blues. Mosley mentions him, but does not flesh him out where he probally should have. Mosley writes a good and evil story, except that he does not do enough with the evil. His story builds to a climax that is very anticlimatic. What I found very frustrating was that his book ended very abruptly where he could have added 50 pages to flesh out the ending and bring in a more satisfying finish. The book is an easy read that is a fast page turner. It will be interesting to see if he stays with the science fiction or goes back to his mysteries.
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Summary: A Different Light for Mosley
Review: The Blue Light struck the Bay Area and those who witnessed it and even those who didn't had their lives changed dramatically as the result of it's appearance including the narrator, Chance is a lonely man, a dejected Ph.D. candidate who'd recently failed at ending his life. He becomes a member of the "close congregation" - a group of people of who'd experienced the blue light as well as those who wanted to know about it. Their leader Orde' became Chance's mentor and "brother" after a ritual was performed on him. The story traces the path Chance takes as a member of the congregation and his experience with the "blues" (those who were directly hit with the blue light). Having never fit in with any group because of his biracial heritage, he finds amongst this group of strange folks a family made up of different ethnicities, ages and backgrounds. The main characters (blues and others) are introduced in rapid succession. The stories of these characters and Chance's involvement with them are intriguingly told but with a bit of gore. If the reader can get passed the gore the story becomes quite readable, a story about living life against the specter of death. For this reader the blue light represents an elevated life that allows that person possessing it to experience life to a greater degree than the rest of us, however the blues life ends just like everyone else's, with death. This book was at the least disturbing and at the best, interesting. It's even been theorized that none of the events told even happened but were a hallucination or dream of the narrator. You decide.
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Summary: Dim Story
Review: This was a very disappointing story. I listened to the unabridged version and fell asleep on parts of the story without feeling like I missed anything. It took quite a while to get into and understand what was happening with the mysterious blue light, which is never truly explained. Chance, who tells the story of the blue light, is not a character that you come to care about, he's one of many people with a confusing story connecting him with the blue light. The other protaganists did very little to help push the story along, and I could not figure out the reason for the antaganist, Greyman (who by the way was corny). Though parts of the book was interesting, the ending left me highly annoyed. It was over 9 hours of wasted time.
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