Horror Book Reviews
More Details...Price: $12.95 |
Title: Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines |
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Review of Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines
- Zombies have devoured mankind. And the few survivors would be better off dead because a clan of vampires, bloodthirsty and vicious, have captured the remnants of humanity for livestock. In an apartment building barricaded with wrecked cars, concrete rubble, and snarls of barbwire, the vampires breed lobotomized amputees. Ann, the secret blood slave of the maternity doctor, has evaded this fate, yet her sister Ellie has not. Though she longs to escape, Ann cannot abandon her sibling and unborn niece. But she may have to if she wants to survive. The living dead have found a weak spot in the barricade and are quickly invading the building. Shade, the vampire monarch, defends her kingdom, while Frost, Shade's general, plans to migrate to an island where they can breed and hunt humans. In their path stands a legion of corpses, just now evolving into something far more lethal, something with tentacles--and that's just the beginning.
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Comments for Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines
- Posted on 2008-06-14
Rich in word-play but stands out from the crowd...
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Here's a choice clip from the review:
'Roses Of Blood On Barbwire Vines is an excellent debut from a promising horror writer. Its mixing of genres will appeal to many, yet confuse others. Fans of character-driven horror may find the vamps a little two-dimensional (and brutal) to really root for, and, with a shortfall in humans to get your identifiable teeth into (GROAN!), Roses may lose a little of its potency. Yet, for lovers of hardcore horror, with writing as strikingly gorgeous as the book's lead vixen, DL Snell's your man.'
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-06-14
Dark story by a descriptive writer
Well,
I was approached by Snell over a year ago about this book. He saw that I was a zombie fan and thought I might like to read his writing.
I've since thanked him very much for making me aware of it's presence.
D.L.Snell is a very dark and descriptive writer, at least when it comes to horror. I don't know what other writing he may have participated in aside from horror books. But, with that said, Roses of Blood is a descriptive piece of work following a group of vampires that are trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies. The city is in ruins and almost all of humanity is dead. The problem this poses for vampire kind is that their food source is almost gone, so the few human survivors that the vampires have left they use extremely strict and graphic methods to control. All the while two of the head vampires are vying for control over the rest of the vamps, one wishes to lead them to safety outside the city while the other wants to defend their stronghold to the end in the name of her father. Meanwhile the zombies are mutating, becoming stronger by the day, and constantly breaching further through the vampires defenses.
In all, I'm not a fan of vampires. The vampires in the story were typical, dark, moody, Gothic as well as soldiers. Each vampire that was written about had their own particular quirks, keeping them all interesting as characters. What I liked best about the story were the zombies. Dead humans were being re-animated by some sort of hive mind creature (sort of) that lived inside the corpses heads. The creatures were constantly developing and evolving throughout the story, granting the zombies stronger powers as the story progressed. The zombies really made the story for me, because they were a fresh and unique angle on the undead that few writers utilize.
Anyways, the story has some graphic torture, some graphic sex, and a lot of graphic violence. If you don't want to read about that stuff, pass on this one. If you want a dark and descriptive read, this is an excellent book for you.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2008-06-04
Great idea, but....
.... the writer got lost somewhwere. I expected an original story about Vampires and Zombies... and for the first 25 pages all I got was Vampire porn. Not even good porn at that... LOL.... needless to say, I didn't get to far into this book before deciding it wasn't worth my time.
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-03-21
Metaphors and an overused vernacular make for a difficult read
I'm on a zombie book kick right now and want to read what people rate as the best. DL Snell tried to be a literary genius by making each descriptive sentence into some metaphor or simile. I'm an educated person and I can grasp and understand these, but it does require one to think, thus making it a slower read.
Another complaint is that each chapter is about 3-4 pages long. It would seem that instead of trying to link each scene change with some words, he'd rather just end the chapter.
Complaints aside, it is a gruesome tale of vampirism and their quest for survival. I just wish the author would use common language instead of trying to come across as a pompous know-it-all. I was misguided by the rest of the reviews, thinking this would be a great and easy read. I was wrong, sadly.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2007-12-20
The best kind of vampire story - a new one
Vampires tend to be subdivided into leather-clad Matrix ripoffs and brooding, oversexualized social castoffs. While Snell's vampires are very erotic and pack a lot of firepower, the author gives us an original and engaging take on vampires as they struggle to eke out an existence in a world plagued by the undead. Herding humans like cattle while watching over their shoulders for the advancing zombie hordes, it's a welcome breath of fresh air to see bloodsuckers in this type of scenario.
And the zombies are just as good - while based on the traditional dead guy archetype, these zombies evolve into something stranger, and the mystery behind their transformation makes them all the more terrifying.
Rich with metaphor and visceral imagery, Roses of Blood commands an epic feel as it winds towards its bloody conclusion.
Score: 4