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Chris M Finkelstein

Autor de Blood For Love (Volume 1)

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Créditos de la imagen: Chris M. Finkelstein was born in the woods to Christian wolves who had become secular Jews through two thousand years of refinement, the first half quite dark.

Obras de Chris M Finkelstein

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Article first published as Book Review: Blood For Love by Chris M. Finkelstein on Blogcritics.

If love were like a form of religion, and persecuted as many religions have been throughout history, what would the world be like? Would we have small pockets of dissenters, those who continue to allow love into their lives and the lives of their friends and family?

In Blood For Love by Chris M. Finkelstein, this question is not abstract. In his fantasy world, built on a violent planet and peopled with lizard like beings known as D’olian we follow the differences of discipline vs. love. This is an interesting and thought provoking story that follows a world where war has destroyed all but one species. Love has been outlawed and if discovered is punished by DeathBT, or Death by Torture.

Rigorous study on the subject has found that procreation and the young have a stronger survival rate when surrounded by a loving environment. In order to maintain the growth of their race, love is allowed for the first 5 years of life. After 5 years, the children attend a brutal deprograming camp with dire consequences for those that cannot be turned. The brutality and mind control leave many so disturbed they will never be the same, and suicide and murder often follow. The percentages of those that do survive make the program successful--so it continues.

The mothers must also attend a camp. Torture and other brutal and nefarious methods are used to create the angry, frustrated and cowed women that are preferred by the government of this planet. In extreme cases, rape, in brutal and extreme measures, is used to get the compliancy that is expected.

This is the story of a young man and his family and friends as he makes his way through life, belonging to the underground Lern (Love’s Epiphany Requirement Network) and also known by the epithet of Love-lovers. The ruling party is known as NOV or Nation of Vengeance. Now a part of the Governments rule for hundreds of years, the NOV were instrumental in destroying the other races and poisoning the planet.

There is a bigger reason for the birth of Jan, he is slated for bigger and brighter things, but only if he can overcome the deprograming and find a way to beat the NOV. He is just an odd young man on his own; can he turn the tide and save those who believe in love? Can this group of reptilian humanoids overcome their violent nature and rebuild their world?
Jan does not fit of mold of the common D’otain. He is kind and considerate. He is as tall as the usual D’otain, but he is long and lean. His crest is also very unusual and a figure of fun for years as a youngster. Very slow to anger, he is the opposite of his race, and as such, he is often beat up and injured. This is a story of a family in crisis. We are along for the ride to learn if and how they escape the binds.

Finkelstein has created some interesting and unique characters. They are both brutal and yet civilized, capable of running a government and at the same time capable of murdering those like them, whose beliefs of love go against the ordinance. Intermixed with the brutality and violence, there is a peace loving faction of Love-lovers that will stop at nothing to prove their rights.
The story is interesting and yet extreme. The sequences leading up to the end keeps you turning the pages in disbelief. It gives us an understanding of being in a different world where normal is not the culture, and anger and brutality rule the planet. It is strange and yet fascinating, and Finkelstein’s race of humanoids are quite distinct.

If you like adventure and love, twisted and weaved with brutality, rape, cruelty, fanaticism, and torture, you will find this book is up your alley. Even after reading it, I am sure it will stay with me. It is both disturbing and yet full of heroics, an emotional roller coaster that will have you wondering where it will all end.

This book was received free from the author. All opinions are my own based off my reading and understanding of the material.
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Denunciada
wrighton-time | 2 reseñas más. | Aug 8, 2011 |
Ok, wow, where to start? Characters, I just have to say it: reptilians? Really, Chris? How could you? I LOVE reptilian-staring stories, it’s crazy how much of a fan I am, seriously! You know that sort of old series, Farscape? Well I was rooting for Scorpius, he was my most favorite character there, I sort of had like a reptilous-crush on him But I’m sure that hasn’t influenced my thoughts on Chris Finkelstein’s novel (well, ok, so it has, deal with it!)
Obviously, I was almost fangirling about it as soon my eyes met the magic word “scales”. There aren’t enough good stories about reptilians out there, though Chris Finkelstein‘s “D’Ot Hexalogy“, of which Blood for Love is Book 1, gives me great hope the situation is going to be vastly improved.

Now, on with the more objective part of my read. The entire world pretty much fascinated me; it’s a hard thing to do, to build a fantasy world without describing it in grueling detail, and without skipping descriptions so much so that your reader forgets how it’s all supposed to be. Chris Finkelstein hit a fabulous balance, making me feel like it was my town he was describing, possibly my backyard, so to speak, and yet another world altogether. The vast presence of metal gives you a sensory clue as to the life in this world; there are actual laws against love, so you can imagine just how heavy, hard and cold life there would be. Of course, all hope is not lost. But I won’t go much into details, or I’ll spoil the read for you guys, and we don’t wanna do that, do we?

Now, I will address one aspect that I didn’t find bothering, but slightly surprising. In a world of cold, hard laws, brute force and violence, you wouldn’t quite expect there to be a religious movement that is centered on love, or at least I didn’t expect that. It’s more of a moralizing streak then a religious one, I’d say; the book has one message that I find great, to lose the ability to love selflessly is to lose that which makes you a real person, as opposed to some drone or beast. I will say though that there may be some that would find these streaks to fall more into a religious-like area, what with the exodus and all. I myself am not the sort of reader that enjoys strong religious undertones to books that aren’t on religious matters per se, however I find in this novel it’s more of a general message of love, and it’s not the main focus, but a balanced part of the plot.

The novel is rich in action, without becoming a chronicle of battles every 5 seconds; yet again, the author hits a great balance. What would have I liked to have more off? Well, villains. But then again, I’m the villain-supporter sort of gal, so that’s something I always wish I’d had more of. Don’t get me wrong, there are all sorts of nasty d’otians in the story, but there isn’t a main antagonist for me crush on :D
Could this have been a 5 butterflies material? Yes, actually. I loved the plot, the pace of it, how the writer built his characters, events didn’t feel at all rushed or dragged on, I wasn’t left with “blanks” along the ride, as it sometimes happens with books that were designed to be part of a series.
But why haven’t I given it my ultimate book-crush 5 butterflies rating? Honestly, the style of the writing; eloquent, beautiful, but less on the highly cursive side, and I hope I make myself clear on this: it’s not in any way lacking, but if it would have been a bit more fluid, it would have made this novel a killer, in my opinion.

Product-wise, e-book has a beautiful presentation, I also very much so loved the cover, and I LOVE the paperback as well. There are many things that tempt me into giving it my 5 butterflies rating, that have to do with the paperback reading experience. The font, the care with which it has been styled, the feel of the actual page – it’s all worth an A+, honestly. As a sensory-oriented reader, all these things will greatly impact my reading experience. For instance, I was reading a book once, and though the story, the writing, the characters, all were great, the quality of the paper it was printed on, the small size of the font and the overall cluttered feel of it left me with a sour taste. It may be unfair to factor that in with the writing, but as soon as you make your art into a product, all aspects of it will factor in.
Honestly, I’d give the paperback a 4 and a half butterflies, jut on account of it being so rich to the touch.

All in all, I highly recommend this book to reptilian fans like myself, to fantasy fans as well; there were moments the movie Equilibrium came to mind while reading, you know that thick atmosphere the movie made such a brilliant job at impressing upon you? Well Blood for Love does impress its thick atmosphere on you major-style, so when reading it be prepared, be strong enough to go through the storm before reaching the “light”, there are some pretty intense themes that will come up.
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Denunciada
L.E.Olteano | 2 reseñas más. | Jun 20, 2011 |
I have to say this book was not at all what I was expecting. It's about a planet where love is forbidden - and so I expected it to be a romance. It's not about that. It's about a resistance movement trying to survive in what seems to be a destructive government. It's called the Nation of Vengeance. Now I don't like the name, I can't imagine a government calling themselves that, but it is pretty apt.

So there's an enemy, which all good novels tend to have, and there's good guys: Jan, Martha, Rebecca... etc. These are good characters, altohugh I wouldn't say they are outstanding, they changed too fast after they went to a certain school, and there was one character, Rachael, who I felt was underdeveloped. But the character that reallys stood out to me was Grisvolt. He was somewhere between the clear cut "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys", although he was clearly a good person. I found the fact that a lot of the time he was torn between emotions he knew he shouldn't have endeared him to me more. I was quite impressed with his character.

There was a couple of things about the text itself that I didn't really like. The first was the use of brackets. I tend to prefer that authors avoid the use of brackets in dialogue and narrative. And although Finklestein didn't do it that often, there are two instances where I felt that really they didn't need to be used, and that stick with me. The first is "in the Nation of Vengeance, (the NOV.)" and the second is "They were dressed in refined black ela robes, (very expensive,) and there were seven of them.". In both cases I feel that it could have been done without a bracketed term. But it's not a huge issue, just a personal issue with parentheses.

There were a couple of spelling mistakes in the text as well, but very few, and this didn't cause a real problem. Although one was quite interesting. On the first page of chapter nine there is a word used. the sentence is: "He didn't return her "goodnight" gniteerg." I'm not sure if this is a mistake, I know my word processor has sometimes made me write backwards. But I like to think the author just decided that goodnight was the opposite of a greeting and decided to use it backwards.

I feel like I haven't stressed anything particularly good about the novel, despite giving it 9/10. However, the little I described above is all that I found wrong with it. The plot was really good, the society was original, and some of the more technical ideas were fascinating to read about. The novel itself combines two genres seamlessly, Science Fiction is the backdrop for what could easily be a work literary fiction. There's no space battles, or even any advanced technology. It's just an alien species that essentially parallel our own, but taken to an extreme (as many alien species in SF do). But it combines it in a way that is easy to accept as just Sci-Fi.There is even some religous fiction thrown in there - albeit disguised as a metaphor about dragons. But it's seamless with the story, and the story isn't about the religion, so it's not intrusive at all.

Overall, I think Finklesteins writing works very well. I enjoyed reading it, and would love to see more work by this author. The D'otian race is not particularly unique, as there are many lizard humanoids, however their culture and society IS original, and fascinating to read about. The characters sometimes do things unrealistically, but this happens infrequently and to be honest it's not that big a problem. I really enjoyed this novel, I couldn't put it down and I would love to see more from this author.
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½
 
Denunciada
AdamBourke | 2 reseñas más. | Jun 8, 2011 |

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