Sunglasses After Dark: Full Blooded Collection

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The premise is Sonja Blue is the adopted persona of a young heiress who disappeared a couple of decades prior. Imprisoned inside a metal hospital, but only recently, she has a fascinating history the reader slowly discovers. Sonja is a "living" vampire who has managed to maintain most of her humanity upon her traumatic transition from rebellious teenage girl to vampire. Forced to work as a prostitute, eventually becoming a hunter of her own kind, Sonja must cope with the traumatic physical as well as psychological changes that have turned her from Denise Thorne to Sonja Blue. A vampire who struggles with a personified embodiment of psychopathia and hunger called "The Other" (who may be a demon or may be not). I really enjoyed it, but I'd be cautious recommending Sunglasses After Dark to others. It's brutally gory and violent, and in particular rape comes up again and again, men on women and also women on men; I winced a lot. Some of those scenes are quite graphic, and some of them involve mind control (vampires and psychics abound). This would all have been hard to read from a male perspective and I think it would have felt different from a male author. But knowing a woman wrote it, and seeing precisely how Nancy Collins handled these scenes (mostly from a female perspective and if not with female agency centered), they felt like honest explorations of very dark fantasies.

If you're looking for a gritty, bloody, no holds barred, in your face no-sparkling-vampires-allowed vampire tale, then this is the book for you. Another pivotal character in our tale is Catherine Wheele. She's a powerful, enigmatic, charismatic televangelist. Add ruthless to that list and you have the ingredients for a humdinger of an antagonist. Maybe I will prove myself wrong but I don't think I will finish the series. While I can see why it is a well written book, I frankly didn't like it. A street poetess of pain and rage, Nancy A. Collins has cast an undeniable shadow across the tradition of dark and fantastic fiction.”— Cemetery Dance Magazine I've listened to several hundred audiobooks (probably close to a thousand by now) and this book is the best available vampire-audiobook out there (until Nancy Baker's books get reprinted and re-released).

Nancy A. Collins (born 10 September 1959) is a United States horror fiction writer best known for her series of vampire novels featuring her character Sonja Blue. Collins has also written for comic books, including the Swamp Thing series, Jason Vs. Leatherface, Predator: Hell Come A Walkin and her own one-shot Dhampire: Stillborn. SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK by Nancy A. Collins is the first of the Sonja Blue novels that I have been recommended multiple times but haven't gotten around to reading until now. I actually know Nancy Collins, first, from her Vampirella comics that were quite entertaining and sadly cut short. I also knew her to be an author who had briefly put her characters in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe but I had never read her signature Sonja Blue series. Collins’ debut novel [ Sunglasses After Dark] infuses the ancient myth of the vampire with a modern beat, embedding elements of the horror genre in a compelling psychological thriller.”— Publishers Weekly

The punk themes are embodied by the primary villain being religious hypocrite and televangelist con woman, Catherine, exploiting her followers through the use of psychic powers. She has endured a life almost as horrifying as Sonja's but it has made her even more determined to be the boot rather the ant. Honestly, Catherine doesn't work that well as a villain because she seems fairly weak tea compared to Sonja's other opponents and her motivations are almost incidental to our heroine's problems. We also have Sonja's bisexual British Renfield and much time devoted to how society craps on women in general (which our heroine still suffers from because she needs money). Effectively, she just has our heroine imprisoned so she can keep bilking her parents but doesn't even know Sonja is a vampire for most of their relationship. Should I mark that for spoilers? Nah. This isn't a book based on suspense, it's about gore and vampire lore and mixing creeping dread with radical violence.This is such a trashy book but I had a really good time with it. I found a copy in a used bookstore with a very 80s cover that I just love. I was afraid at the beginning that it was going to center too much around Claude, the big hulking man that Sonja ends up protecting, but this is very much Sonja's book. Honestly, I gave this 3 stars because I didn't hate it and I can see how many people would enjoy the book. Collins is incredibly descriptive and there is nothing wrong with the story. I know intellectually that this is far more likely to be the behavior of someone who drinks human blood. However, it just really wasn't my cup of tea...or bottle of True Blood, be that as it may. Horror fans will immediately recognize the name of Nancy Collins, possibly the most original voice in the world of vampire fiction since Anne Rice published Interview With the Vampire.”—Film Threat While Nancy A. Collins is not a "new" author by any means, you need to run, not walk, to your nearest book source and read what you've been missing.

The positives (when they were present). A high level of inventiveness, and excellent visuals for scenes, characters and action. Sonja's a tough character to like sometimes, but you do like her - she has a conscience, which makes living with the destructive (and malevolently sarcastic) Other extremely difficult. It's a constant battle to keep her bad side under control. Sonja's also a freak in a world of freaks. She is developing into a Noble vampire at an accelerated rate and appears to have very few of the typical vampire weaknesses. Ironically, she's also a self-styled vampire hunter, out for revenge on the monster who took her human life away. In short, she comes off as a sort of female "Blade" just without the messianic zeal for killing any and all of the undead. All of that gore and sex does lend it a lurid air - but I want to salute Nancy Collins here, because it felt like it was trashy deliberately. Everything felt over the top that by the end I was just riding with every awful thing. Man strung up by his intestines? Not the first time, won't be the last. The sexual violence was treated almost exactly the same, too - you're horrified, it's awful, and it makes that horror sing.Stars. Downgrading this to 2 stars. On reflection the production values were insulting to this reader, and the exposition was terrible. Collins . . . chronicles excess with an almost elegant stylistic restraint . . . Sunglasses After Darkis replete with eroticism and violence, movement and color.”—Locus Of Course, I usually read this series about once a year, as nothing compares and Nancy Collins wrote this before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon.. Collins has created a unique vampire in a very strange world that looks a lot like our own.”—Science Fiction Chronicle Sonja could have been a very sad character. I honestly believe she could have been written in such a way that my heart would have ached for all that she had lost and what she had become. Likewise, I think I could have liked her. She tries to not be the personification of evil. I can liken her a bit to Dexter Morgan in that she thinks she feels nothing but she clearly does. And what happened to her is so very very sad.

Sonja is a tragic figure. Memories of who she was before she was turned into a vampire plague her and drive her to the edge of madness. Make no mistake though, when push comes to shove, Sonja reacts in true vampire style.Nancy A. Collins's world of darkness is painted from a rich palette populated not only by vampires, but demons, ogres and other bump-in-the-nighters. Originally published in 1989, I read it some years later and remember enjoying it so was looking forward to this re-read. When heiress Denise Thorne disappears in 1969 London, no trace of her is ever found because she was abducted by a master vampire and became Sonja Blue, a “tough-as-nails punk vampire/vampire-slayer”. The story follows her learning her skills and working her way across Europe, wiping out vampires as she searches for the man who converted her and the sleazy televangelist - Catherine Wheele - who has been exploiting Denise’s parents.