Blue Light--Walter Mosely

Year Published: 1999
Pages: 400
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 3/5

This was a really weird book. I really disliked the first two-thirds of it, but by the end I was sort of captivated. Until the very end, which was sort of like a cold bucket of water.

I'm not sure that I can really explain the plot of this book. I'm not sure that I understand it. Basically, one day blue light comes down and infuses several people from earth--from San Francisco in the late 60s, to be more specific. The people whom the light has touched become sort of demigods, and they spread their word and recruit more followers through blood and sex. This rouses the interest of an evil being, known as "death" to the blue light people (or "Blues" as they are referred to in the book), and he comes to kill them in very horrific and gory detail. Many of them die, but those that are left flee and are called to a "safe zone" in the redwood forests of California, where they are led by a strange forestkeeper (sort of an archetypical "green man" figure) to help seed the world with "blue" trees. Here they live a peaceful, innocent existence, where they are among others like themselves and grapple with their true natures. Then the bad guy comes.

The battle that ensues is not what disappointed me about the ending, and I won't spoil it by explaining what did. (If anyone has actually read this book and wants to discuss it, feel free to email me!) I liked the part of the book that took place in the forest; I found myself sucked into their carefree, primal and feral world. And I like the premise, though I can't exactly enunciate it--that humans are pods waiting to be seeded and sprout into evolution. But a lot of the book had a dark seedy feel to it, and it created a lot of unanswered questions.

Challenge/s: TBR
Book-a-week # 61