Book: Blood Price
Author: Martin White
Trigger warnings: racism, Misgendering, transphobic slurs|(if you spotted any I missed please let me know so I can add them, thanks)
Sub-genre: Superheroes/Urban fantasy
Page count: 63
Points of Diversity: Multiracial Person of color, Transgender
Intersectional Diversity?: no
Would Recommend?: no
Oh boy, where to start? First off full disclosure. This is the first time I have received a copy of a book from the author with a request to review it. In the request it was stated that he wasn’t looking for a positive review but a fair one based on my opinion. If he had insisted on a positive review in exchange for the free copy then I would not have accepted the book at all. Now, with that out of the way, let me explain why this book is not receiving my recommendation.
I feel like the author’s heart is in the right place. However, this book has several problems both with writing structure and representation. The story feels very fast paced and is difficult to follow, reading like a beta copy rather than a completed work. There is a major lack of descriptions for characters and places, and those that are present are very vague and brief. The writing itself is also clunky in places, especially the second sentence. The shorter the story the more important that first paragraph is and in a 63 page novella, having a run-on exposition dump sentence as your opening will turn off most readers.
The plot itself is difficult to untangle. From what I can gather, our three heroes are fighting against incarnations of chaos that manifest from their darkest memories. The monsters of chaos lead them to these tendrils that are part of an avatar of chaos and there’s three of them, one for each hero. They have to destroy each of them in order to destroy the avatar and they find out that their primary powers were actually given to them by this being of chaos and they have to be destroyed in order to defeat the avatar of chaos, but they still have powers after that… I honestly don’t know what to make of it.
I will say that past the first sentence, the opening chapter is rather humorous. Bob is going through all the things his niece, Penny, could have done that would be worse than becoming a superhero. He’s trying to reassure himself because, hey, she could have have married an ex-convict or something. Sadly the book just goes downhill from there, especially when it introduces the two characters who will team up with our superhero.
So while out on patrol Penny runs into two other heroes, a werewolf and a spellcaster possessed by the ghost of an old wizard. The werewolf is named Wolf, the spellcaster calls herself Melody, and the ghost wizard who inhabits her body is called Leanne. Melody is a 13-14 year old transwoman who uses her magic to give herself a female body. She also chooses to fight crime in a mini-skirt and high heels. I had honestly hoped that the lack of pictures would mean our heroes would dress more practically. After all, a lack of visuals should take away the excuse of “artistic expression” to justify stupid hero outfits on women but apparently not. She also comes across as very unlikeable when she casts a spell on Wolf, forcing him to spend several hours in the body of a woman, despite his pleading, all for calling her a “weak city girl.” This is made even worse by the fact that Melody is white and Wolf is not. So, we have a person of color having to beg a white person to undo something that only that white person can undo.
However this all pales in comparison to the problems presented with Wolf’s character. He is the only character given any description that could apply to race and is only described as “multi-ethnic” (which is inaccurate because ethnicity describes culture, not skin color or genetic makeup). The only other clue given to his race is given while exploring his memories. He used to work at a factory where his boss once said, “If you people had invented guns, you could have ruled the roost instead, but in this world, you’ve got to answer to mighty whiteys like me.” The initial impression I got from this was that Wolf is supposed to be Native American, but it’s never made clear one way or the other.
Wolf has spent the last several years living in the forest on the outskirts of town, hunting and foraging for food. He decries the fact that children play video games instead of learning to hunt and is constantly going on about “the way of nature.” This leads to what is the biggest offense in the whole story. Wolf is always naked and insists on remaining naked because, according to him, it “is the state of nature.” This is made worse by the fact that he has to be in his twenties or older in order to have worked at that factory, and he is insisting on being naked in front of teenage girls. When the girls protest he simply smirks at them, then gets defensive and angry. That behavior dangerously mirrors what you’d typically see in abusers, so Native American or not, we still have a case where the only character in this book who is a person of color is portrayed as a creepy pedophile. Even if that wasn’t the author’s intention, that’s the impression I got.
What it comes down to is, there are two characters who fall into marginalized groups, and both of them are portrayed as caricatures. Melody comes off as vengeful, vapid, and even Price treats her like her personal fashion consultant (which many gay and trans people are treated as in real life). Wolf’s religious fervor regarding nature is downright offensive if he’s meant to be Native American. And that’s to say nothing of the antagonists in the story, large and small, who use phrases like “mighty whiteys” and “boy-girl”. Such over-the-top language detracts from the gravity of the situation to people who are just coming to understand the concept of microaggressions, and may be triggering for readers who have experienced it.
I honestly don’t know what else to say. Given some more work to make the plot easier to follow it might have been a decent story. As it is now it feels very stream of consciousness, like the author was making it up as he went. That can work for the first drafts but not for a final piece. But even if those issues were fixed, it doesn’t change the very racist and offensive portrayal of Wolf. Nor does it fix the problematic portrayal of Melody as a ditz who cares more about girly clothes than preparing for a fight. Those two issues alone would lead me to put it on the “not recommended” list but combined with just how slapped together the whole book feels, it comes off as…amateurish.
Slapping diversity on a white background is the first step, but I really would have liked to see this with at least six more months’ editing behind it. I do get the since that he’s trying, but you need to be very careful in portraying diversity because so much ignorance surrounds it already and you can’t assume your audience will know everything about it. As such, in this case, including problematic elements like those portrayed here, serves only to perpetuate the problem.
Mars WaterDragon 