Product Description
Trouble's brewing when Sonja Blue, vampire and vampire hunter, takes on the Kindred of the World of Darkness in a hair-raising, hell-raising carnage-filled crossover. Written as only Nancy Collins can, this novel promises to be a treat for World of Darkness aficionados and Collins fans alike.
Product Details
| Publisher | White Wolf Publishing |
| ISBN | 1565048733 |
| Format | Paperback |
| Author | Nancy Collins |
| EAN | 9781565048737 |
| Label | White Wolf Publishing |
| Edition | X |
| Dewey Decimal Number | 741 |
| Studio | White Wolf Publishing |
| Number Of Pages | 276 |
| Title | Dozen Black Roses |
| Publication Date | 2000-05-01 |
| Manufacturer | White Wolf Publishing |
Customer Reviews
Great Homage to YojimboReview by J. Whelchel, 2007-12-07
I loved the movie Yojimbo where Toshiro Mifune plays a nameless ronan who takes on two rival clans. If you've never seen it, find a copy & Watch it. It's brilliant.
I'm also a fan of the western adaptation, 'For a Few Dollars more' with Clint Eastwood's famous portrayal of the nameless anti hero.
Nancy Collins does the material justice by inserting Sonja Blue into the role. I found it interesting that she doesn't name her Character until near the end of the story and so keeps to the feel of Akira Kurosawa classic.
For fans of 'Sun Glasses After Dark', Sonja feels a little different here, but she was able to port her into the World of Darkness pretty much intact. The "rules" of vampires work just a tad bit different than in Mrs. Collins world of pretenders. If you're a Vampire the Masquerade fan, you may feel a little slighted as she doesn't completely immerse the story into that world. Still, I think she got the feel right and it was interesting to read about the Blood Wizards. The price of magic is particularly high if becoming a mage means you have to join the Tremiere.
If you're not familiar with either the Masquerade gaming system or the original Sonja Blue stories, I recommend starting with Sun Glasses After Dark or some of the other Whitewolf material first to get a better feel for the place you'll be visiting here. But be sure to come back here at a later date.
Seeing Ms. Blue wield a switchblade with the same skill Toshiro wields a katana is worth the effort.
Note on the ranking: I rank on an absolute scale. A Dozen Black Roses is an excellent book, but not quite a the level of the best of the best which should be reserved for only a few books. Maybe 1 every decade or so. Still if you like this genre, you'll like this book.
She's Back!
Review by Rodney Powell, 2001-10-05
Sonya Blue, Nancy Collins's unforgettable vampire slaying heroine returns in this very violent and gripping adventure.This time Sonya who is only known as The Stranger enters the sinister
city of Deadtown.Deadtown is the bloody battleground of two competing vampire lords, Sinjon who has ruled the city for almost two centuries and Esher the utterly ruthless younger vampire who wants the city for himself.They both traffic in drugs and use psychotic gangbangers as their armies.Sonya befriends Cloudy, a aging hippy and Ryan a young boy who's mother is controlled by Esher. Sonya decides to detroy both vampires, who are called Kindred in the novel.This short novel is filled with scenes of very graphic violence and visceral action sequences.The characters like the brave boy, Ryan are also very well drawn and the villians such as Esher and his sadistic vampire henchwoman, Decima also are memorable.My own complain of this book is that is really is a dark fantasy remake of two films: Yojimbo and Clint Eastwood's spaghatti western fistful of dollars.Once I knew the similarities between the book and those movies I guessed what would happen next in the plot and I was right all of the time.If u seen these movies you will remember what does happen in the novel as well.But other than that be prepared as Sonya Blue puts you under her spell as she puts the vampires dead under for good!
Another GREAT book by Nancy Collins
Review by MDK67, 2000-01-23
Great book, I rate it at the top of all the books written by Nancy Collins (with Sunglasses after dark and Angles on Fire). I enjoyed the story line revolving around the battle for "Dead Town" and the gang/vampire warfare. The construction of the characters was very well conceived and excitiong to read. Again, a great book....
WOD fans will pick this apart.
Review by Anonymous, 1999-07-07
Collins tried to blend an elsewhere established character into the brilliantly realized World of Darkness, and the effort fell flat. It would have been a similar endeavor for someone to write a novel about Batman throwing down with Brujah street toughs on the mean streets of Gotham, thus running afoul of the city's Prince. The story in A Dozen Black Roses was fairly contrived, and the characters lacked a certain panache. Perhaps the thing that annoyed me the most though was the way Collins went through the entire book without introducing Sonja Blue by name until the very end. She simply refers to Sonja as "the stranger". I felt that it was a pretty lame literary device.
less charming than the sonja blue trilogy
Review by Anonymous, 1999-01-27
It's definitely a nice book to read, but after finishing it, I felt more like having seen a motion picture in the cinema than enjoying some piece of literature. by the way: Ms. Collins definitely has a problem using german words/names, I nearly could assume some kind of quabbalistic intention ;-)
