Wild Blood

I first encountered Nancy Collins when I read her debut novel, 'Sunglasses After Dark' (1989), which won the Bram Stoker Award. It featured Sonja Blue, a kickass vampire very different from the Anne Rice version. It was fresh and clever and filled with casual, graphic violence and transactional sex that felt raw and real rather than contrived and exploitative. Sonja Blue lived in a heartless, vicious, blood-spattered world so completely lacking in glamour or romance that it made other vampire books seem like Disney World.

I picked up 'Wild Blood' (1994) because I wanted to see what kind of werewolves Nancy Collins would conjure up. It turned out I was in for quite a ride.

As always, Nancy Collins' storytelling was vivid, violent, original show more and strangely believable. She twists the werewolf tropes just as vigorously as she did the vampire ones.

The story starts strong. It's action-packed, violent and on a different path to most werewolf books. At the start of the book, our hero thinks he's human, then he gets caught up in a spiral of violent misadventure that would rip most men's humanity away. Oddly, although this process reveals his non-human nature, he mostly remains the kind, thoughtful young man he was raised to be.

Then he falls in with other werewolves.

Nancy Collins' werewolves aren't strong, decent men trying to control their wolf taint while looking for a soulmate. This isn't a paranormal romance. These werewolves aren't and don't want to be human. They want to be all the wolf they can be. Humans are meat. But smart meat that needs to be stalked, not battled. Sex is neither erotic nor romantic. It's a rutting frenzy that fuels rape and murder. They're not led by a wise but ruthless alpha male who enforces discipline and respect. They're led by a highly-sexed bitch who they all fight to the death to mate with.

It isn't all violence and gore (although it is mostly violence and gore). There is a bigger story arc to do with our hero's origins and with the other shifter races.

I liked the idea that the werewolves are as violent as they are not because they've given up control to their wolves, but because, for centuries, they've been behaving too much like humans.

I had a lot of fun with this book. I found the ending a little hard to swallow, mostly because it moved from the personal, immediate and threat-laden into the political, strategic and potentially peaceful.

Even so, it was good fun. A sort of fast food horror: highly seasoned with violence and mayhem and best eaten quicklywhile it's hot.

I read the ebook version of 'Wild Blood', published by Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy in 2022. They didn't do a great job. There were lots of typos, missing words and incorrectly substituted words. This was distracting and, given current technology, insulingly incompetent. Buy a different version if you can.

Oh, and this is the cover they produced. It has to be one of the worst covers that I've seen, and it has nothing to do with the story. show less

I really love Nancy Collins' writing; I was excited to read one of the few books of hers that I haven't read. I loved her Sonja Blue series and even loved the books I read outside that series, for example "Angels on Fire". I have got to say though "Wild Blood" is not one of her better novels. It is an okay read but she has written much, much better stuff than is found in this book.

In this book Skinner, who starts the book as your typical college student, finds out (through a series of disasters) that he is a werewolf. Skinner ends up immersed in an uber-violent society as he tries to figure out what it means to be one of these super powerful creatures. Skinner works to find a place for himself in this new lifestyle as he struggles to show more maintain the morals he was raised with.

Those of you who have read Collins before know that she doesn't pull punches when it comes to violence. She is one of the few writers who can occasionally make me nauseous with the violent and perverse turns that her novels take. So, if you don't like violence (I am including both blood and guts violence, humiliating violence, and sexual violence in my violence statement) I would stay away. There is nothing beautiful about this novel, it is very, very dark..oh and did I mention violent?

The pace of the story is pretty good and actually keeps the reader very engaged. Skinner is not the most engaging or interesting character ever, but he has a uniquely down-to-earth yet tormented personality. Most of the surrounding characters are not at all likable. The book, unfortunately, is very predictable. The blood and violence, there is a ton of rape and other sexual violence in this book, was less necessary to the plot than in other books of Collins that I have read.

Surprisingly the ending to this book is rather gentle. Which is a bit odd for those of us familiar with Collins's other works; she is not one for a happy ending. Compared to the rest of the book the ending was actually very positive and sweet.

Overall it was an okay read. Nothing extraordinary. A good book to read for Halloween. For those paranormal lovers, this book definitely tends more to the horror side of things. There is definitely not a focus on romance or supernaturals as misunderstood members of society. Personally, if you want to read Nancy Collins I would start with the Sonya Blue Collection, it is much better. show less

I really like Nancy Collins for fun, not-too-serious horror novels...
by which I do not mean humorous, but trashily explicit and violent.
They're like B-movies in print. She's best known for her Sonya Blue
vampire series, but in Wild Blood, Collins takes on werewolves.
After his parents die, college student Skinner discovers that he is
actually a werewolf. A local werewolf gang (who are also a rock band)
finds him and expects him to join up with them, but he is shocked by
their brutal, sadistic behavior, and their viciously hierarchical
power structure. But does he have a choice? He is, after all, one of
them...
Definitely recommended for all werewolf fans.

#905 in our old book database. Not rated.

*note to self. Copy from A.