Rating: 
Summary: Suspenseful and gripping read will keep you awake all night
Review: Equal parts mystery, horror, action script and historical adventure, I stayed up well into the wee hours to finish this book. I breathlessly followed the desperate efforts of a black computer programmer/hacker and Web-surfer to piece together the connection between:
- the attempted abduction of his son;
- bizzare and inexplicable supernatural events involving his daughter, and
- his family's history from slavery to today.
Can he and his family find the key to stopping evil? Read it to find out, and enjoy the ride!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read; Excellent Race Relation Examination
Review: As anyone knows, I'm a tough sell. It takes a lot for a book to capture my imagination and make me want to really, really read it and regret it when I reach the end. Blood Brothers was just such a book. What makes it a good book?
"In L.A., young black computer games programmer/hacker Derek Waites is horrified when a cop attempts to abduct his children- -promising teenager Troy and lovable young Dee--and his ex-wife Rachel. Recently, Dee has been going into trances and reporting messages from a certain Dahlia Washington. The connection? Well, Derek's family is descended from Dahlia and slave-owner Augustus DuPris; now hundreds of years old, DuPris is a sorcerer who rejuvenates himself by feeding on the life-forces of his descendants. Dahlia says that a man named Tucker can help Derek. Tucker, it emerges, is white, has connections to neo-Nazi groups, and is rotting in jail for murdering his family! But--aha!--Tucker is descended from another sorcerer, The African, DuPris's partner, who preys upon Tucker's family just as DuPris preys upon Derek's. So, even if Derek can bust Tucker out of jail, can the two set aside their differences to save Derek's children and defeat the sorcerers?"
That's the basic set-up but what makes this novel compelling is how each character actually has a personality. The novel does tend to jerk a little at the end, unfortunately the strongest books of this nature can't live up in scale in the end. That's a given when the book is really good. The trade-off is that the story really pumps as Derek and Tucker genuinely don't like one another, for self-valid reasons. At the heart of this book is themes of racism and underlying relationships. It's one of the first books that I've seen that suggested a physical and spiritual need for a cooperation between Black and White people, I think that's what makes this book outstanding. You could point out that Derek and Tucker as archetypes are reversed for socialized views of what they should be or should know---Derek has no "killer instinct" (his hesitancy puts him and others at risks and at the same time makes him invaluable as he stops and evaluates each move, like a chess player and Tucker is constantly acting without thinking (his greatest strength but also his greatest limitation).
I personally believe that the link between all the People's of this here planet Earth is basic, perhaps even down to the blood and the magic realism/sci fi-esque field will explore this area quicker than other forms of literature. The summer after discovering Steven Barnes I then found his name as a note on a Tananarive Due books, all three which are excellent as well. Between the two of them there is a slow but steady emergence in the Fantasy (? I have no idea what to specifiy this field as, it covers so many areas but I do believe that at a point it is firmly grounded New Literature).
This book then lead me on to another Barnes book, Iron Shadows and the measure of a book is whether or not one will go out and buy a book by the author again. Steven Barnes delivers.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read; Excellent Race Relation Examination
Review: As anyone knows, I'm a tough sell. It takes a lot for a book to capture my imagination and make me want to really, really read it and regret it when I reach the end. Blood Brothers was just such a book. What makes it a good book?
"In L.A., young black computer games programmer/hacker Derek Waites is horrified when a cop attempts to abduct his children- -promising teenager Troy and lovable young Dee--and his ex-wife Rachel. Recently, Dee has been going into trances and reporting messages from a certain Dahlia Washington. The connection? Well, Derek's family is descended from Dahlia and slave-owner Augustus DuPris; now hundreds of years old, DuPris is a sorcerer who rejuvenates himself by feeding on the life-forces of his descendants. Dahlia says that a man named Tucker can help Derek. Tucker, it emerges, is white, has connections to neo-Nazi groups, and is rotting in jail for murdering his family! But--aha!--Tucker is descended from another sorcerer, The African, DuPris's partner, who preys upon Tucker's family just as DuPris preys upon Derek's. So, even if Derek can bust Tucker out of jail, can the two set aside their differences to save Derek's children and defeat the sorcerers?"
That's the basic set-up but what makes this novel compelling is how each character actually has a personality. The novel does tend to jerk a little at the end, unfortunately the strongest books of this nature can't live up in scale in the end. That's a given when the book is really good. The trade-off is that the story really pumps as Derek and Tucker genuinely don't like one another, for self-valid reasons. At the heart of this book is themes of racism and underlying relationships. It's one of the first books that I've seen that suggested a physical and spiritual need for a cooperation between Black and White people, I think that's what makes this book outstanding. You could point out that Derek and Tucker as archetypes are reversed for socialized views of what they should be or should know---Derek has no "killer instinct" (his hesitancy puts him and others at risks and at the same time makes him invaluable as he stops and evaluates each move, like a chess player and Tucker is constantly acting without thinking (his greatest strength but also his greatest limitation).
I personally believe that the link between all the People's of this here planet Earth is basic, perhaps even down to the blood and the magic realism/sci fi-esque field will explore this area quicker than other forms of literature. The summer after discovering Steven Barnes I then found his name as a note on a Tananarive Due books, all three which are excellent as well. Between the two of them there is a slow but steady emergence in the Fantasy (? I have no idea what to specifiy this field as, it covers so many areas but I do believe that at a point it is firmly grounded New Literature).
This book then lead me on to another Barnes book, Iron Shadows and the measure of a book is whether or not one will go out and buy a book by the author again. Steven Barnes delivers.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like Tim Powers, you'll like this.
Review: Great combination of historical research with dark fantasy. Really picks up momentum as the book rolls along. I'm good at guessing endings and I thought I had this one figured out half way through. I was wrong. It's a worthy read.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book! I definetly recommend it!
Review: I enjoyed this book from beginning to end. I picked it up from a bargain rack not knowing what to expect and was pleasantly surprised. Great plot! Exciting and interesting!
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: I enjoyed this book. The characters were interesting, and the situations were unique. I definitely recommend this book
Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: I thought it was a very good read with an enaging storyline that tied together well at the end. I'd have given it a 5 but I don't think it delivered the action that it promised. Good book though.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing premise marred by stilted writing and meager plot
Review: In Blood Brothers, the sins of Africa and the ante-bellum South come back to haunt both black and white in modern LA. The flashbacks, narrated by the former slave and reluctant sorceress Dahlia, are tightly written and compelling. The author is at his best with pure description, keeping the dialogue short and almost formal. The contemporary scenes, by contrast, are overly long, crammed with too much peripheral detail. The proliferation of characters--and their internal dialogues laced with gratuitous profanity-- reminded me of Stephen King's early work--and for me, that's not a compliment. Plus, there were the unfortunate potholes in the plot, detailed at length by other reviewers here. That said, although the writing foibles did bounce me unceremoniously out of the story from time to time, I stuck with it to the end. If you're not overly picky, Blood Brothers is a reasonably satisfying Sunday night read.
Rating:
Summary: A fast reading action thriller with a supernatural element
Review: Steven Barnes has created a nice balance between the supernatural element and the traditional elements of an action novel - male bonding, moral dilemmas, desperate combat, military technology and character development. I liked the fact that his main character breaks some of the typical stereotypes. Not only is he black, he is also a computer geek and father whose wife is divorcing him. Definitely worth reading!
Rating:
Summary: BLOOD BROTHERS: GOOD UNECCESSARY PLOT
Review: The premise of the story reads like a juicy Dean Koontz novel, which also makes me suspect that the author was trying to find his voice, if not trying to outright emulate the Dean's inimitable voice. Yet the premise of the story -- rescuing an 11-year old black boy so he isn't turned into a psychic soul strainer -- is uneccesary. This is Because the two protagonists could just as easily have sired more kids to accomplish this. And indeed the author mentions that these protagonists already have a lively harem to do this with. So why bother with two highly visible and successful families' 11-year old boys? Perhaps that's the real mystery in this novel! Still, BB moves quickly and is suspenseful enough, which is why it rates a seven. Other niggling factors that annoyed me with this read, and that kept on jarring my inner ear, was the author's propensity to use lots of cliches from old pop music hits. These chiclet-smacking one-liners really detracted from the overall serious message that the author was trying to achieve in the novel. Which made me wonder what the author was really trying to do with his audience when writing this. And perhaps that is the second greatest mystery that the author wanted to deliver in this scifi mystery; namely, that he really intends to annoy his readers. At least that certainly seems to be his intent. Especially when he ends his novel with the most cliched pop one-liner ever. Read it and see if you, too, aren't annoyed with it as well? No mystery there!
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