- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (Nov 2 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0316570982
- ISBN-13: 978-0316570985
- Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 2.5 x 24.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Despite the success of his color-coded Easy Rawlins series, Walter Mosley dares, with Blue Light, to go where few mystery writers have gone before. The novel is pure (if not simple) science fiction, less evocative of Philip Marlow than Philip K. Dick. It begins during the 1960s, when flashes of extraterrestrial blue light enter the bodies of several Northern Californians. Those struck by the flashes immediately take on superhuman abilities. Mosley's narrator, Chance, is not himself a recipient of the heaven-sent beams, but after a blood transfusion from the leader of the Blues, his consciousness expands. The biracial, suicidal Thucydides scholar becomes a supernal historian of his new, blue-inflected peer group. He dreams of a "far-flung future, when science is not estranged from the soul" and where human beings will see the world with the purified vision of his enlightened brethren. Still, he is powerless in the face of the Gray Man--a vicious incarnation of evil who seems intent on wiping out the entire Blue population. Somber and violent, bizarre and oddly reverent, Blue Light marks a promising new direction for Mosley. What's more, the dangling threads at the end intimate a vast epic to come (Mosley has suggested that a trilogy awaits) and a literary challenge that's anything but Easy. --Patrick O'Kelley
From Publishers Weekly
You have to admire Mosley: with a gilt-edged brand-name character (Easy Rawlins)in his locker, he still can't resist venturing off in new directions. Sometimes his effort to break new ground works beautifully, as in RL's Dream; sometimes it's an interesting misfire, as in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned.This time, however, it seems plain misguided. Blue Light is an odd mixture of science fiction and inspirational fable about a sort of cosmic ray that enters into a handful of people, giving them superhuman faculties, and the struggle some of these ultra-evolved folk have with the spirit of Death, who has also been granted special powers. Beginning in Berkeley during the hippie love days (well observed, as Mosley's West Coast scenes always are) and eventually migrating into the deep forests of the Sierra, where a group of "blues" create a sort of idyllic pastoral retreat, the story is mostly told from the viewpoint of Chance, a half-breed drifter. One of its more original aspects is that several of the characters, enacting roles similar to those often given by other writers to Native American shamans and seers, are black. There are some jolting scenes of sexuality and violence, and some arresting images, like the vocalizing trees experienced by the "blues"; but the biology is insufficiently imagined, the time sequence is sometimes confusing and a sort of vague poesy that is a far cry from Mosley's typically sinewy prose is the predominant style. Time-Warner audio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
Orde stood atop the flat stone in Garber Park - talking. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Orde stood atop the flat stone in Garber Park - talking. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
God Aweful,
By
This review is from: Blue Light (Mass Market Paperback)
Simply, a terribly written book. It has a shallow plot, flat characters and no style. His descriptions of people are often late, and tend to consist of someone's skin colour. And that's all. The story moves ok at first but degrades into the most uninteresting chase/camping trip in the history of the world. The ideas presented are soft, touchy feely sort of "the soul is love" type crap. Seems like it's a rip off of The Celestine Prophecy, which isn't something anyone should want to rip off in the first place.
1.0 out of 5 stars
BLUE LIGHT--an imitation of SCORPION SHARDS?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Blue Light (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book because it seemed to remind me of a book I'd read long ago...and BLUE LIGHT is, indeed, suspiciously similiar to the plot of the SCORPION SHARDS trilogy by Neal Shusterman. With a few superficial differences--change the name of the "Thief of Souls" into the "Grey Man", change the number of people/things recieving the Star-shards...there's way too much similiarity. If you're going to read one of these 2 books, definitely check out SCORPION SHARDS by Neal Shusterman first.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Buyer Beware,
By J. Faurot (OH USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blue Light (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book based on backcover info. What a disappointment. It's not just that it is poorly written and unimaginative. Unless you are into sleazily written sex and gore, you won't find much to hold your interest. There is nothing new here. Just tired, sorry, second rate prose, thinly drawn characters in a porno-lite storyline. Save your money.
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