 Vampires, wizards, war, gay buttsex, but thankfully, no dragons. Ariel Tachna's ALLIANCE IN BLOOD is in a fluffy, entertaining summer read that manages to be a fun watch despite its melodramatic execution. ---- Should anyone poll the general populace about what the most dangerous fantastical creatures are, no doubt vampires would top the list. Should that same anyone poll writers as to what the most dangerous fantastical creatures are to write about, no doubt vampires would top that list as well (followed by dragons and wizards, I’m sure). And there’s a good reason for this: vampires are everywhere in pop culture – Moonlight, Buffy the Vampire, Season Eight, Angel: after the Fall, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, 30 Days of Night, just to name a few – and ever since Anne Rice made them into a cottage industry, there’s very little new to be said. Insatiable bloodlust? Check. Tormented? Check. Burdened by immortality? Check. Fluid sexuality? Check. Misunderstood? Check. Yeah, it’s pretty much all been done. Yet writers pooh-pooh the dangers of vampires and trundle heedlessly into the Void, writing their takes on the undead legends to varying degrees of success. The latest in this series of ill-advised adventures is Ariel Tachna’s Alliance in Blood. Beyond what everyman humans can see, a war is raging between good wizards led by Marcel Cavinier and dark wizards led by Pascal Serrier. Luckily, it’s raging in Paris, so even though the body count is going to be high, the backdrop is fabulous, what with its fashionable cafes, labyrinthine museums and personable vinters who know which wine goes with wholesale mystical slaughter. The French make wine for every occasion, don’t they? Marcel’s army, however, is the one drinking deep the defeat, so he makes an unpopular decision: to form an alliance with the vampires and bolster the strength of the good wizards, if only during nighttime hours. Alain, a dear recently-bereaved bisexual wizard and personal friend of the forward-thinking Marcel, volunteers to be an ambassador and at their first rendezvous meets his vampiric counterpart: the heavily damaged, hot-house orchid Orlando. Here we find Tachna’s spin on vampires – drinking blood can act as a polygraph and drinking wizards' blood can make a vampire invulnerable to the sun’s withering light. It seems a win-win situation for both sides. Alain and Orlando lay the groundwork for the wizard/vampire alliance only moments before they lay each other. I’ll give Ms. Tachna this: she knows how to write gay sex. It’s not as smutty as some of the items on nifty.org, but it’s not as banal as a Harlequin Romance either. Both Alain and Orlando have had… let’s call then “disappointments” in the past with their relationships, but this time it seems like true love. I know they are trying to be balm to one another, but there are moments when they seem to be in a master/pet dynamic. This isn’t to say there’re aren’t people who behave that way in relationships, but it usually ends in heartache down the road without tons and tons of therapy. And I’d like to see these guys have a glimmer of a chance at happiness. Some may say I’m being glib with my review. I say I’m counterpoising the earnestness of Alliance of Blood. The book is in actuality a fluffy, entertaining summer read if not a bit too Dark Victory, a movie I can quote by heart, but not because it’s a cinematic masterpiece; rather that it manages to be a fun watch despite its melodramatic execution. So, in brief, vampires, wizards, war, gay buttsex. But thankfully, no dragons. Well, at least not in this volume. Heaven forbid Tachna drags out that hoary chestnut, too. 3.5 stars out of 5 |