Hit or Quit It – Cherie Priest’s Bloodshot

Hit Or Quit It is an anti-intellectual, often meandering, and completely useless examination of my feelings…of the first twenty pages of novels that luck upon the Protocult’s attention and answer the question of “hit” or “quit”. There is literally no literary value. Or any other kind.

After missing out on Boneshaker and Dreadnaught, two books I thought I’d be inclined to like, I didn’t really think Bloodshot, the latest from Cherie Priest would be a book that I’d have a chance of enjoying. One, I’m a hard sale on just about anything vampire related. Like my aversion to zombies (yes, I know), I just lack a natural interest that I know many people have built-in for anything utilizing vamp-lore. It definitely crosses over to other mediums as well, as I’m generally only a fan of semi-spoofs like Shaun of the Dead and I’m not in love with AMC’s adaptation (or the comic for that matter) of The Walking Dead or HBO’s True Blood, two projects that have made recent splashes on networks whose sensibilities I generally gravitate towards. In a post-Matheson world I’ve only really enjoyed the Vampire escapades of Charlie Huston’s Joe Pitt (which I will admit to be suffering withdrawals for) and a couple of efforts by Dan Simmons’ in Carrion Comfort and Children of the Night.

Two? Hey, if publishers are going to continue to avoid digital galleys/ARCs, I will continue judge books by covers, and not speaking to its quality for its target audience at all, this is a presentation I’d pass on in public and I’m the cat who read Wednesday Comics on the spot at trendy outdoor European bars, up in the mix, with no love loss.

Number three is silly. Bloodshot is also the name of one of my favorite comic book characters. I’ve talked about how damn near a million people got to know him on the day Superman died. I loved picking up Bloodshot each and every month and it was among the last comics I kept on collecting before I reached an age where my money moved toward teenage vices. Never heard of him? Barry Windsor-Smith and Chromium for the win!



It’s silly how we cling to stuff but association can be a bitch, but when I see or hear Bloodshot I think nanite powered former Italian mobster badass whose blood bridges future Japanese champions from my favorite line of comics ever. You couple that with my natural distaste for vamp-fic and you may begin to feel my problem.

BUT…

I’m a sucker for a page-turner. In some corners that attribute is a knock, but in the middle of the ballroom it’s the biggest compliment. I don’t follow or catalog the criticism or accolades of Cherie but I’m going to not many people complimented her for economy and general appeal. Ever since I read her Four and Twenty Blackbirds I’ve had this completely unreferenced and more than likely baseless idea that Priest writes for a larger audience than her tried an true base encompasses and that fact is not mentioned enough. From “Southern Horror” to “Steampunk”, or even “Not Steampunk”, limitations seem always around and welcome, where for me I’ve always found this nice not-so-little voice who just needs to be told she is a page-turn inducing hellion; an anointed and willing champion or favorite of this sect or that, but someone I’ve always thought looked good and belonged on main street. With (her) Bloodshot you know where you are immediately. She lays out what is at least that moment’s primary objective with clarity and the only thing you have to decide has nothing to do with the novel’s main character, one Raylene Pendle, a high class thief for hire who happens to be a vampire.

At least at first glance. Raylene is granted and introduced with an upfront physical and sexual camouflage. She doesn’t even have a nice rack to draw normal, general, unwanted eyes. Why is this an advantage? Well, she’d get arrested by one of or several agencies looking for her if she wasn’t ambiguous. If she was allowed to be loud and champion her inner and natural awesome she’d no longer – would not be allowed to – to hide and flourish in her subculture. Indeed, it takes another of her kind to find and identify her. While using thief as a protagonist, Bloodshot assimilates a basic crime novel’s atmosphere to start out with and like all such novels the mechanics and steps are familiar and has little to do with us digging Raylene. The question more often is if we like the author. If we like Cherie Priest. I do.

I just think a lot more people can be and want to be asked the same question.

I’d hit it but I’m not so sure how long we’d last. This relationship comes with a lot of baggage and prejudices on my part.