Review: Good and interesting fiction for vampire fans
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 15, 2013
Jason S. Ridler has refreshed the vampire genre fiction in a good way. His previous book, Blood & Sawdust, was an entertaining and totally different kind of a vampire book. Now, in A Triumph for Sakura, he continues to refresh the genre by writing about vampires and fighting in a society where vampire overlords have become rulers.I don't normally read this kind of speculative fiction, but I enjoyed this book. In my opinion A Triumph for Sakura is a fresh and interesting combination of several different elements from True Blood to The Hunger Games. Note! Although I refer to The Hunger Games, this book can only be recommended to adult readers (one of the main characters, Sakura, is a young woman, but this book isn't YA fiction).Here's a bit of spoiler-free information about the plot:Ned Bangs is a fighting coach, who struggles with his life. His luck changes when he meet Sakura in the alley where she is confronted by vampires. After the first meeting Ned begins to train Sakura for fights. Sakura is a janitor, but she's a good and talented fighter. She's a stubborn young woman who has a lot to learn...Jason S. Ridler's prose is delightfully hard-boiled, and so is the action. Although his prose is hard-boiled, it's also sharp and witty. His prose reminds me a bit of quality pulp fiction, but it's different from it - it's almost like he's honed pulp fiction to suit his needs and replaced all the mainstream elements with speculative fiction elements.I think it's great that the author is capable of writing about brutal happenings in a believable way. I find his stories and action scenes interesting, because he doesn't glorify and sugarcoat violence in any way. I'm sure that readers who watch boxing and wrestling, will enjoy this book very much, because the realistic action and fight scenes may appeal to them.The author writes amazingly well about fighting and all things related to it. In this book, he writes about fighting in a much broader way than before. He has developed quite a lot as an author and delivers all the possible pain involved in fighting matches and training sessions to his readers by writing realistically about the fight scenes. He describes fluently and vividly how it feels to fight and how difficult and challenging it is to fight against an opponent - the heat and frenzy of the fight is totally believable.Worldbuilding is minimalistic, but the world that the author has created begins to open to the reader as the story progresses. The author's vision of the world is wonderfully dark. He has been able to create a believable and grim society in which vampire overlords rule the world. It was interesting to read how the different social classes marked the humans and the vampires into different groups, because there was a distinct hierarchy in the society.Although A Triumph for Sakura is a book about two characters who are brought together by chance and must try to work together, it can also be seen as a survival story, because both characters try to survive in a hostile environment.The main characters, Ned Bangs and Sakura, are fascinating, because both of them are different. At first they seem a bit distant, but gradually the author deepens them and they develop nicely towards the end. The other characters are also interesting.I noticed that there are certain things in this book which aren't fully explored. I don't know if the author intends to write a sequel someday, but it would be possible to write a sequel, because the world that he has created is interesting and several things could be explored more deeply.A Triumph for Sakura is perfect summer reading, because it's a fast-paced book. It may not be to everybody's liking because of its contents (blood, fighting etc), but readers who want to read something different will probably enjoy it. I can recommend this book to readers who like vampire stories, because the author has created a bit kind of a vampire story.By the way, if you haven't read Jason S. Ridler's stories and books, this book is a good starting point. If you like this book, you should take a look at the author's other books too, because they're interesting books.Good and interesting fiction for vampire fans!