Book Review: Black Blood, by John Meaney

John Meaney's Black Blood, the sequel to Bone Song, is a book with an identity crisis. Does it want to be a thriller? A fantasy/horror story? A piece of social commentary? A character study? There is a piece of each of these things, but none of them have enough presence to feel complete (although the character study comes closest; in fact, Meaney focuses so much time on developing Donal Riordan's character and his reaction to becoming a zombie that none of the other characters really develop personalities). Judging from the ending, its main goal is to be a thriller, but the pacing is too choppy, the major plot points too heavily weighted towards the book's end, and the ending is not much of a resolution, just an abrupt transition to a future sequel.

The world, however, is engrossing from the first page to the last. Donal Riordan is a police detective in a dystopian fantasy world - one which, ironically, is preparing to take rights away from humans with magical abilities, such as bone listeners, who can hear a dead person's thoughts by touching their bones, and zombies, dead humans reanimated by an electric-powered black heart. Donal is only just beginning to deal with being a zombie, and to complicate matters, his black heart once belonged to his dead zombie lover.

Meaney doesn't fall into the worldbuilding traps of lesser authors, such as lengthy introductions, infodumping, or characters informing other characters of things they should already know. All of the information is integrated seamlessly, even the recaps of the events in Bone Song, in a way that excites the reader and pushes them to read further and discover more about Donal's world, and Donal himself.

But here is where the book's identity crisis becomes fully apparent: when the plot picks up about two-thirds of the way through the book, becoming more like a thriller than the character study and worldbuilding exercise it had been beforehand, Donal disappears for long stretches of time, replaced by an increasing cast of characters, none of which are developed beyond their necessary function in the story. The social commentary aspect becomes more central with the introduction of a bone listener, but since the reader does not know him as much as he knows Donal, it is harder to sympathize.

Black Blood presents an intriguing and original world, and for that it is a wonderful read despite its flaws, especially for authors looking for a good example of worldbuilding to imitate. However, it will disappoint a reader who expects a thriller, or a horror story, or any plot of much consistency.