Blood Lust 4: Being Supreme by Rhys A Wilcox (book review).

In a slight diversion from the previous stories in the ‘Blood Lust’ series, ‘Blood Lust 4: Being Supreme’ looks at how being a super-hero really sucks pretty much all of the time.

Returning heroes Daniel Knight, who has the ability to see otherworldly stuff, and Cameron, his friend, who is a vampire which can be awkward, although all Dan does is put on his dark glasses to avoid being over-whelmed.

It all starts when they run into some super-heroes and don’t be expecting the calm superiority of Superman or the camera shy Batman. These guys live in a world where the unthinkable has already happened. The undead and newly dead have all made their mark around the country and nothing will be quite the same again.

Those super-heroes all have their back stories and much of this book is about just how they came to be in their super-state. There is also a plot that involves our friends Dan and Cam as the heroes face an unknown enemy complicated by the state of the world.

Mostly hilarious and sometimes quite gory in a quite plot-appropriate way of course, the stories about the heroes draw on all the known abilities and often over-used clichés to highlight our over-reliance on someone to come and save the day when we mere mortals are quite helpless. This is a super-subversion but in an affectionate tongue in cheek way and certainly beats the rather mundane ‘I got bitten by a radioactive spider’ explanation. Along the way, we get space travel, gender stereotypes and, of course, extreme violence, oh and there’s definitely a villain’s super-lair in there as well.

‘Blood Lust 4: Being Supreme’ is quirky and fun with the self-deprecation that comes naturally to a Brit author. It’s a good read that will make you look at the glamorous world of the super-hero with a fresh eye although I can’t guaranteed that it would be a rather jaundiced eye that might need a patch over it by the end of the novel. He! He!

Sue Davies

December 2014

(pub: RAW! 242 page paperback. Price: £ 7.53 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-95615-592-4)

check out website: www.thebloodlust.co.uk