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WilliamCampbellPowell

William's Book Blog

Mostly book reviews.  Very rarely I'll allow William Campbell Powell (author) to write a blog entry on publishing activity, but he's under orders to keep that stuff over on his Facebook page and on http://williamcampbellpowell.com

Currently reading

Zeroboxer
Fonda Lee
Zeroboxer
Fonda Lee
Anansi Boys
Neil Gaiman
Zombie Elementary: The Real Story
Howard Whitehouse
Progress: 99 %
The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Progress: 6/504 pages
The Longest Week: What Really Happened During Jesus' Final Days
Nick Page
Progress: 43/310 pages

Nightmare Blue

Nightmare Blue - Gardner Dozois This has been in my collection a long time, and is one I come back to from time to time. The Blue of the title is a drug , instantly addictive, and withdrawal means death.

Who's pushing it, and why?

There are aliens, so it's no great leap to guess they're involved. But there's also opposition to the protag's investigation from the human authorities, so there's no support to be had there.

It's quite dystopian - the writing evokes sleaze and a broken society, and while you hope for a happy ending - there's a race against the clock going on - there's nothing in the author's style that promises you'll get one.

So yes, it's an adventure/thriller, more like the Big Sleep than the Thirty-Nine Steps. The aliens are unimportant in one sense - writing the novel today you could easily substitute terrorists or an unfriendly nation with strong science, and tell much the same tale.