nanceoir's review against another edition
3.0
This was good, I think, but a strangely uncomfortable read. I haven't been able to put my finger on what made it uncomfortable, but for me it just was.
joshgauthier's review against another edition
4.0
Blackbirds is a crime-thriller with distinct fantasy and horror elements. Set on the fringes of polite civilization, where broken people fight their way toward another day of survival, the story begins dark and only gets heavier as events spiral toward violent confrontations, shocking revelations, and the looming threat of tragic fate.
Wendig's talented writing weaves together a narrow cast of characters, each as flawed and shocking as the previous. But he takes the time to give the characters (and the reader) brief glimpses of beauty and hope--however fleeting they might be. The story is gripping and unsettling from start to finish, moving with a sort of tortured inevitability toward the bold conclusion. It might have benefited from a little more development of a couple character interactions, but Wendig's dramatic skill as a storyteller draws the reader in, surprises, and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. It's a violent and harsh world, but the story at its center is an engaging one nonetheless.
Wendig's talented writing weaves together a narrow cast of characters, each as flawed and shocking as the previous. But he takes the time to give the characters (and the reader) brief glimpses of beauty and hope--however fleeting they might be. The story is gripping and unsettling from start to finish, moving with a sort of tortured inevitability toward the bold conclusion. It might have benefited from a little more development of a couple character interactions, but Wendig's dramatic skill as a storyteller draws the reader in, surprises, and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. It's a violent and harsh world, but the story at its center is an engaging one nonetheless.
sjj169's review against another edition
4.0
Miriam Black is either cursed or blessed with a little talent. She can touch someone and know the date, time and manner in which you die.
Miriam just floats around not really belonging anywhere. She smokes.
And drops more F bombs than I do.
She stumbles upon a guy named Ashley and he has a metal case that he is all protective over. Miriam goes against her better instincts and hooks up with him.
Miriam knows she shouldn't get involved. Best thing would be to slink out of the bar with the antifreeze bourbon under her arm, never give a look back. Of course, she's never been the Queen of Good Decisions.
She also gets picked up by a do-gooder trucker and sees his death. That she witnesses. She tries to stay away from him because she thinks she can't change fate but here's hoping.
Stuff just doesn't seem to work out for Miriam. She gets in more trouble in this book than I do on Goodreads.
I LOVED her character. She admits to being a bad girl but not a bad person, because duh, you can't save em all.
AND the best part. I picked up some new cussing from her.
"No shit. Your dull, Eurotrash seed couldn't father a donkey. Though I'm sure you've tried, you froo-froo piece of shit donkey-fucker skinhead."
This book also taught me what a Blumpy was..because...
I read this one as a buddy read with Kelly, Delee and 2.0 It will probably end well since 2.0 reads everything wrong.
Miriam just floats around not really belonging anywhere. She smokes.
And drops more F bombs than I do.
She stumbles upon a guy named Ashley and he has a metal case that he is all protective over. Miriam goes against her better instincts and hooks up with him.
Miriam knows she shouldn't get involved. Best thing would be to slink out of the bar with the antifreeze bourbon under her arm, never give a look back. Of course, she's never been the Queen of Good Decisions.
She also gets picked up by a do-gooder trucker and sees his death. That she witnesses. She tries to stay away from him because she thinks she can't change fate but here's hoping.
Stuff just doesn't seem to work out for Miriam. She gets in more trouble in this book than I do on Goodreads.
I LOVED her character. She admits to being a bad girl but not a bad person, because duh, you can't save em all.
AND the best part. I picked up some new cussing from her.
"No shit. Your dull, Eurotrash seed couldn't father a donkey. Though I'm sure you've tried, you froo-froo piece of shit donkey-fucker skinhead."
This book also taught me what a Blumpy was..because...
I read this one as a buddy read with Kelly, Delee and 2.0 It will probably end well since 2.0 reads everything wrong.
krgreen's review against another edition
5.0
I've followed Chuck's blog and read his none fiction e-books on writing over the past few years. But I hadn't read any of his fiction.
I don't tend to read anything with much swearing, gore, or murder. I don't read thrillers or crimes or mystery books. Yet I picked this up to see how Chuck applies his writing advice to a story, and it kept me hooked until I reached the end. I began reading this morning, and finished this evening.
The pacing was great - showing the important events and making every scene count, yet keeping me reading with a sense of urgency. The main characters had their own mannerisms, histories and motives, and the sub-plots came together in a really neat knot by the end.
I'll definitely take a look at Mockingbird, the next book in the series.
I don't tend to read anything with much swearing, gore, or murder. I don't read thrillers or crimes or mystery books. Yet I picked this up to see how Chuck applies his writing advice to a story, and it kept me hooked until I reached the end. I began reading this morning, and finished this evening.
The pacing was great - showing the important events and making every scene count, yet keeping me reading with a sense of urgency. The main characters had their own mannerisms, histories and motives, and the sub-plots came together in a really neat knot by the end.
I'll definitely take a look at Mockingbird, the next book in the series.
linguana's review against another edition
1.0
Wow, I hated this book. Shame, because the cover is one of the best I've ever seen... Full review at: http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/chuck-wendig-blackbirds/
trudilibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
Really 3.5 stars but since I enjoyed parts of it so much, I'm rounding up. What? A girl's allowed to feel generous every once in awhile. This book is not without its flaws, but goddamn, it has a gritty, modern noir sensibility that I just fell in love with.
Miriam Black is a damaged -- you could even argue deranged -- anti-heroine who isn't a very nice person. She's pretty fucked up actually, and she's just as likely to rob you as she is to spit in your eye. She fills her days (and nights) with booze and sex with strange men. She's a champion of letting the expletives fly. Miriam has enough personal demons and closet skeletons to fill a soccer stadium. And they hunt her. They torment her. And no matter how much she runs, or how far, they are always just at her heels nipping away. While her jagged edges and self-destructive tendencies might not make her very warm and sympathetic, I still found her to be extremely dynamic and interesting. Her choices mattered to me and I became very invested in how her story was going to end.
This is a crime novel in that there is a lot of criminal acts taking place and a lot of vivid descriptions of violence and physical trauma. Miriam's is an unusual problem -- at the touch of skin-on-skin she can foresee the time and circumstances of a person's death. Such intimate foreknowledge is a heavy burden to bear, especially since Death and Fate cannot be foiled. The only control Miriam has over these situations is to maybe be there right at the moment of your destined demise to relieve you of your money and credit cards (you don't need them anymore, right?)
She's pretty much come to accept her powerlessness. It has made her cynical, entirely dysfunctional, and dangerous. Then she meets Louis -- a hapless, widowed truck driver who only has a month left to live. His death involves torture and would be considered gruesome even by mob standards -- and this is what Miriam knows: her name is the last word that falls from his lips. The mystery becomes how do we end up at this point, and despite knowing better, will Miriam be able to cheat Death this time? Will she even try?
While Louis is merely a character sketch, the other woman in this story -- Harriet -- is one of the creepiest, most memorable characters I've read in a while. Like the best noir classics, this book too is all about the damaged women and the choices they make. It is they who drive the story, and the men are just along for the ride.
This book concludes quite solidly but there is a sequel planned that I will definitely be checking out. Miriam is pretty intense and I really want to know where her story goes next.
If you're curious about the writing at all, here are some of my favorite turns of phrase:
The Barnegat Lighthouse has 217 steps. Each is an agony. Each a troubled birth, an expelled kidney stone, a black widow's bite. The steps are corrugated steel painted in flaking yellow. They wind in a tight spiral through a channel of black brick. It is like ascending the throat of some ancient creature.
"You want to make a change...so cosmic you're unwriting death and kicking fate square in the face, then you best be prepared to pay for it." -"With blood," Miriam says. -"With blood and bile and voided bowels."
Miriam stops walking. Clouds drift in front of the sun. Somewhere out over the water, a storm brews, and rain clatters against the tides....Lightning licks at the ocean way out there under the steel sky.
kblincoln's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars
Reading Miriam is like waking up from a hangover to a slap in the face. She walks so close to death (and the terrible images of people dying) that she is now a chain-smoking, gritty, hard-core, con-man kind of girl just trying to make her way through life in as numb a state as possible.
Yet she utterly wins you over. Even when she's making bad, bad, bad decisions.
When Miriam touches people's skin, she sees the hour and manner of their death. It's enough to make any girl seek solace at the bottom of a whiskey glass, but Miriam's got it under control--sort of-- until she sees the death of a trucker who gives her a lift.
He is being tortured and he says her name.
The story of what Miriam does with this knowledge is equal parts con-man caper, thriller, and tightly plotted backstory of trailer trash life laced with the most deliciously creeptastic and evil duo (plus their boss) I've come across since Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
They are awful. Really, really, cut off your foot after you've confessed the whereabouts of your stolen drugs and keep it in a plastic baggie to boil down into prophecy bones awful.
And it all ain't over even at the end. The final scenes where Miriam confronts the death-vision she's been dreading sets you up nicely by giving you some info about the nature of Miriam's ability to control fate as well as hinting her graphic/disturbing dreams are more than they seem.
Not a book for the YA crowd. But its certainly rollicking. And Miriam's voice will win you over despite the cigarette-raspy, unabashedly sexual, calloused heart nature of it. The writing is transparent, graphic, and visually evocative. I'll be getting the next one in the series.
Reading Miriam is like waking up from a hangover to a slap in the face. She walks so close to death (and the terrible images of people dying) that she is now a chain-smoking, gritty, hard-core, con-man kind of girl just trying to make her way through life in as numb a state as possible.
Yet she utterly wins you over. Even when she's making bad, bad, bad decisions.
When Miriam touches people's skin, she sees the hour and manner of their death. It's enough to make any girl seek solace at the bottom of a whiskey glass, but Miriam's got it under control--sort of-- until she sees the death of a trucker who gives her a lift.
He is being tortured and he says her name.
The story of what Miriam does with this knowledge is equal parts con-man caper, thriller, and tightly plotted backstory of trailer trash life laced with the most deliciously creeptastic and evil duo (plus their boss) I've come across since Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
They are awful. Really, really, cut off your foot after you've confessed the whereabouts of your stolen drugs and keep it in a plastic baggie to boil down into prophecy bones awful.
And it all ain't over even at the end. The final scenes where Miriam confronts the death-vision she's been dreading sets you up nicely by giving you some info about the nature of Miriam's ability to control fate as well as hinting her graphic/disturbing dreams are more than they seem.
Not a book for the YA crowd. But its certainly rollicking. And Miriam's voice will win you over despite the cigarette-raspy, unabashedly sexual, calloused heart nature of it. The writing is transparent, graphic, and visually evocative. I'll be getting the next one in the series.
mferrante83's review against another edition
5.0
I first encountered Chuck Wendig’s writing over at his frequently funny, often insightful, and consistently entertaining blog Terrible Minds. The folks over at Angry Robot supplied an eARC of his novel Blackbirds which I snatched up at the first possible opportunity. Blackbirds follows the tale of Miriam Black whose strange ability allows her to perceive a person’s future with skin to skin contact. She has used this ability to travel the roads preying on those whose lives are soon to end. She isn’t a murderer, she just waits for fate to her thing. Such is Miriam’s life, a crow living of the leavings of other people’s lives, until she meets truck driver Louis Darling. In her vision of Louis’ future and inevitable death he shouts her name.
Blackbirds is a story about fate that sort of asks that age old question of whether or not we can change the future. I say “sort of” because while this notion certainly drives Miriam forward it never ever takes center stage over how that question effect’s Miriam’s life. Under a lesser writer it would have been easy for that time honored question of “can we save our future?” to turn into something ham-handed and grating. Wendig avoids that trap by focusing his attention on Miriam has adapted to the belief that fate cannot be stopped. He populates his story with a colorful cast of characters as he slowly begins to challenge Miriam’s beliefs about herself and her strange power.
Miriam is one tough-as-nails young woman. Maybe note the kind of girl you bring home to Mom but in many ways still admirable. Take a look at Miriam as she watches a man die:
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says as Del’s eyes start to bulge like champagne corks ready to pop.
“Jeez, why doesn’t this broad stick a wallet under my tongue? Couldn’t she do me a solid? Or maybe you’re thinking, hey, I’ve had seizures before, and none of them killed me. A guy can’t actually swallow his own tongue, right? That’s just a myth? Or maybe, just maybe, you think I’m some kind of batshit highway witch with magical powers.”
He gurgles. His cheeks go red. Then purple.
Miriam shrugs, wincing, watching it unfold with grim fascination. Not that this is the first time she’s seen it.
“Not so, my friendly neighborhood whore-puncher. This is your destiny, to choke on your own mouth meats, to expire here in this God-fucked motel in the middle of Hell’s half-acre. I’d do something if I could, but I can’t. Were I to put the wallet under your tongue, I’d probably only push the tongue in deeper. See, my mother used to say, ‘Miriam, it is what it is.’ And this, Del Amico, is that.”
Froth bubbles out over Del’s ashen lips. The blood vessels in his eyes burst.
Just like she remembers it.”
Then of course just a couple of lines later:
“Miriam takes a deep breath and shudders. She tries to speak, tries to say she’s sorry, but – She can’t stop it. She runs to the bathroom and pukes in the toilet.”
That contrast to Miriam, the push and pull between her use of her power to survive and her helplessness against what it shows her is the real crux of the novel. You have in Miriam a wonderfully crafted character who actually feels for her fellow man but has done her best to numb herself to that feeling because of the pain it causes.
What I love about Blackbirds is that Wendig never fully explores the deeper mysteries behind Miriam’s power. He explores just enough to hint at a deeper mystery but remains entirely focused on Miriam and the plot of the novel. Things get weirder and more violent as the novel progresses and in a series of interludes Wendig lays out not only Miriam’s past but also explores her own sanity…or maybe something else. That’s the beauty of it. The interludes that are towards the end of the novel serve well as the inner workings of a fractured mind or insight into a deeper truth behind Miriam’s abilities. I’m not sure I even want or need an answer.
Fans of horror fiction and good simple storytelling should definitely give Blackbirds a shot. Chuck Wendig is an author to watch and, if I had any power whatsoever, I’d like to see Blackbirds on the 2012 Stoker ballot. Miriam’s story doesn’t end with Blackbirds more of Miriam can be seen in Mockingbird which is set to release from Angry Robot in September. Wendig is also working on the Dinoocalypse trilogy; a series of novels based in Evil Hat Games’ Spirit of the Century RPG world and I’m definitely seeing what sort of high octane pulp action Wendig has in store there.
Blackbirds is a story about fate that sort of asks that age old question of whether or not we can change the future. I say “sort of” because while this notion certainly drives Miriam forward it never ever takes center stage over how that question effect’s Miriam’s life. Under a lesser writer it would have been easy for that time honored question of “can we save our future?” to turn into something ham-handed and grating. Wendig avoids that trap by focusing his attention on Miriam has adapted to the belief that fate cannot be stopped. He populates his story with a colorful cast of characters as he slowly begins to challenge Miriam’s beliefs about herself and her strange power.
Miriam is one tough-as-nails young woman. Maybe note the kind of girl you bring home to Mom but in many ways still admirable. Take a look at Miriam as she watches a man die:
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says as Del’s eyes start to bulge like champagne corks ready to pop.
“Jeez, why doesn’t this broad stick a wallet under my tongue? Couldn’t she do me a solid? Or maybe you’re thinking, hey, I’ve had seizures before, and none of them killed me. A guy can’t actually swallow his own tongue, right? That’s just a myth? Or maybe, just maybe, you think I’m some kind of batshit highway witch with magical powers.”
He gurgles. His cheeks go red. Then purple.
Miriam shrugs, wincing, watching it unfold with grim fascination. Not that this is the first time she’s seen it.
“Not so, my friendly neighborhood whore-puncher. This is your destiny, to choke on your own mouth meats, to expire here in this God-fucked motel in the middle of Hell’s half-acre. I’d do something if I could, but I can’t. Were I to put the wallet under your tongue, I’d probably only push the tongue in deeper. See, my mother used to say, ‘Miriam, it is what it is.’ And this, Del Amico, is that.”
Froth bubbles out over Del’s ashen lips. The blood vessels in his eyes burst.
Just like she remembers it.”
Then of course just a couple of lines later:
“Miriam takes a deep breath and shudders. She tries to speak, tries to say she’s sorry, but – She can’t stop it. She runs to the bathroom and pukes in the toilet.”
That contrast to Miriam, the push and pull between her use of her power to survive and her helplessness against what it shows her is the real crux of the novel. You have in Miriam a wonderfully crafted character who actually feels for her fellow man but has done her best to numb herself to that feeling because of the pain it causes.
What I love about Blackbirds is that Wendig never fully explores the deeper mysteries behind Miriam’s power. He explores just enough to hint at a deeper mystery but remains entirely focused on Miriam and the plot of the novel. Things get weirder and more violent as the novel progresses and in a series of interludes Wendig lays out not only Miriam’s past but also explores her own sanity…or maybe something else. That’s the beauty of it. The interludes that are towards the end of the novel serve well as the inner workings of a fractured mind or insight into a deeper truth behind Miriam’s abilities. I’m not sure I even want or need an answer.
Fans of horror fiction and good simple storytelling should definitely give Blackbirds a shot. Chuck Wendig is an author to watch and, if I had any power whatsoever, I’d like to see Blackbirds on the 2012 Stoker ballot. Miriam’s story doesn’t end with Blackbirds more of Miriam can be seen in Mockingbird which is set to release from Angry Robot in September. Wendig is also working on the Dinoocalypse trilogy; a series of novels based in Evil Hat Games’ Spirit of the Century RPG world and I’m definitely seeing what sort of high octane pulp action Wendig has in store there.
litwrite's review against another edition
3.0
It took me a while to get into this. I was forcing myself to read through the first half of the book. I just didn't 'get' it. The characters seemed forced to me, especially Miriam who seemed all hard angles, no softness. She irritated, and so did everyone else. I felt it was trying way too hard to be noir.
But then by the third part, something just clicked. I got it.
It's no coincidence that the majority of the true action begins in part 3 of the novel, and it's really where all the disparate pieces, the harshness of the characters, how everything seems over the top - it comes together and it makes sense. Miriam's character goes through her epiphany, and the novel comes together because of this fact.
Not sure if it really *fully* worked for me as urban fantasy meets noir, but that strong second half really saved this book for me. I don't really think it compares all that favorably to [a:Charlie Huston|4861|Charlie Huston|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1232225739p2/4861.jpg]'s [b:Already Dead|21277|Already Dead (Joe Pitt, #1)|Charlie Huston|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320468155s/21277.jpg|1154196], which I think was a little stronger all around and came together much better.
But then by the third part, something just clicked. I got it.
It's no coincidence that the majority of the true action begins in part 3 of the novel, and it's really where all the disparate pieces, the harshness of the characters, how everything seems over the top - it comes together and it makes sense. Miriam's character goes through her epiphany, and the novel comes together because of this fact.
Not sure if it really *fully* worked for me as urban fantasy meets noir, but that strong second half really saved this book for me. I don't really think it compares all that favorably to [a:Charlie Huston|4861|Charlie Huston|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1232225739p2/4861.jpg]'s [b:Already Dead|21277|Already Dead (Joe Pitt, #1)|Charlie Huston|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320468155s/21277.jpg|1154196], which I think was a little stronger all around and came together much better.