Sunglasses After Dark: Full Blooded Collection

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A street poetess of pain and rage, Nancy A. Collins has cast an undeniable shadow across the tradition of dark and fantastic fiction.”— Cemetery Dance Magazine The positives (when they were present). A high level of inventiveness, and excellent visuals for scenes, characters and action. Sometimes, context is everything. Nancy A. Collins wrote this book in the 1980's, after the rise of Anne Rice's pretty-boy, drinking-blood-as-a-metaphor-for-sex vampires. She went against that tide by making Sonja Blue the monstrous killer of older vampire stories, but forged a new path by giving her the tools and motivation to kill other monsters.

To sum up, when it's good, it's very, very good, when it's bad - which is more often than not - it's utterly dreadful. Collins has written twenty novels since 1989, many of which refer to and directly include races of creatures the author calls Pretenders, monsters from myth and legend passing as human to better hunt their prey.

Sonja is a tragic figure. Memories of who she was before she was turned into a vampire plague her and drive her to the edge of madness. Make no mistake though, when push comes to shove, Sonja reacts in true vampire style.

Sonja's a tough character to like sometimes, but you do like her - she has a conscience, which makes living with the destructive (and malevolently sarcastic) Other extremely difficult. It's a constant battle to keep her bad side under control. Sonja's also a freak in a world of freaks. She is developing into a Noble vampire at an accelerated rate and appears to have very few of the typical vampire weaknesses. Ironically, she's also a self-styled vampire hunter, out for revenge on the monster who took her human life away. In short, she comes off as a sort of female "Blade" just without the messianic zeal for killing any and all of the undead. Collins has created a unique vampire in a very strange world that looks a lot like our own.”—Science Fiction Chronicle

The premise is Sonja Blue is the adopted persona of a young heiress who disappeared a couple of decades prior. Imprisoned inside a metal hospital, but only recently, she has a fascinating history the reader slowly discovers. Sonja is a "living" vampire who has managed to maintain most of her humanity upon her traumatic transition from rebellious teenage girl to vampire. Forced to work as a prostitute, eventually becoming a hunter of her own kind, Sonja must cope with the traumatic physical as well as psychological changes that have turned her from Denise Thorne to Sonja Blue. A vampire who struggles with a personified embodiment of psychopathia and hunger called "The Other" (who may be a demon or may be not).

Horror fans will immediately recognize the name of Nancy Collins, possibly the most original voice in the world of vampire fiction since Anne Rice published Interview With the Vampire.”—Film Threat I've listened to several hundred audiobooks (probably close to a thousand by now) and this book is the best available vampire-audiobook out there (until Nancy Baker's books get reprinted and re-released). While Sunglasses After Dark may have been written in '89, it is the most gothic punk 90s horror novel I could've asked for. The finale involves a mirror-shades wearing vampire invading a suburban mansion, setting it on fire, having a psychic battle with a half-succubus, shooting out guards and having a personal revelation about how comfortable she is with violence.Sonja could have been a very sad character. I honestly believe she could have been written in such a way that my heart would have ached for all that she had lost and what she had become. Likewise, I think I could have liked her. She tries to not be the personification of evil. I can liken her a bit to Dexter Morgan in that she thinks she feels nothing but she clearly does. And what happened to her is so very very sad. All of that gore and sex does lend it a lurid air - but I want to salute Nancy Collins here, because it felt like it was trashy deliberately. Everything felt over the top that by the end I was just riding with every awful thing. Man strung up by his intestines? Not the first time, won't be the last. The sexual violence was treated almost exactly the same, too - you're horrified, it's awful, and it makes that horror sing. If you're looking for a gritty, bloody, no holds barred, in your face no-sparkling-vampires-allowed vampire tale, then this is the book for you.