Book Review: Blood on the Ice
Vampires play hockey. Some elements done really well, others SUPREMELY disappointing. I will talk about it a lot, as I am prone to do!
Blood on the Ice by Katriena Knights
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
3.5 stars
This was a book I picked up from a Slash Pile rec. Because I'm still after skating fics in wake of the Olympics and hey hockey is fun and I know a little bit about it, and since it can be a little brutal I figured 'hey, immortal probably near indestructible vampires playing it will be ridiculous but fun to read about' and the sample was well-written enough to pique my interest.
Well, a LOT of it is done well. The book essentially has three main plots - the first being Travis (a guy who gets turned into a vampire at the very start of the book) coming to terms with being a vampire and all that entails in relation to his normal life, his job, his sex life, and relationships with other people, human and vampire. The second is Travis dealing with the hanging threads of his human life and trying to either rectify them, tie them up, or forget them (who turned him, the Stanley cup, his parents, his girlfriend, his friends and former hockey teammates). The third plot is the poorest and the most disappointing, which is the relationship part. Marcus Aurelius, who is a bajillion years old and decides he wants to be a hockey player, sure, is the love interest and occasional POV guy.
He shouldn't have been, first of all. Because his POV brings up SO many interesting things that are NEVER ADDRESSED (and seriously why the hell does he want to be playing hockey? If he wanted to reminisce about gladiatorial rings or whatever he should have gone into boxing or rugby). Like the one throw-away line about how he's finding 'prey' that reminds him of Travis, and Travis in turn reminds him of someone he 'cared for a long time ago'. BUT WE DON'T GET THIS STORY! We don't get who Travis reminds him of or anything about his past AT ALL, the guy is like 2,000 years old HE'S HAD A HUGELY LONG AND VERY INTERESTING LIFE NO MATTER WHAT. Because about halfway through the book Marcus stops being a POV character. Like, he is, for very short pointless chunks, but at the start of the book it was almost alternating chapters between them. He also states REALLY early on in his POV that he's basically going to fall in love with Travis whether he wants to or not...and this is never followed up. That's because the relationship can't decide if they're just fuckbuddies or if they're falling in love. Travis can't decide because he's why-homo-ing for most of the book and Marcus's POV fades out completely, by the end of the book they're both still having sex freely with other people and act much more like fuckbuddies except for the part where you're reading it and remembering all the intense emotions that Marcus has been directing at Travis basically the ENTIRE BOOK, and in return all the intense sexual feelings Travis has had for Marcus the ENTIRE BOOK, but yet...no?? There's no resolution.
Basically what should have happened here was two books. Travis gets one and Marcus gets the other. Because Travis has enough story going on to completely hold up the book on his own, and actually all the stuff going on with him is really interesting and well done, although the 'vampires playing hockey' bit is actually a little bit like...forgotten about? Games are described but not in much detail after Travis shoots a goal literally through a goalie's chest; it's everything else that's the focus, because he wants to know who turned him, he wants to get his name on the Stanley cup because his prior team won it but technically he 'died' before that happened and so there's actually a lot of background human-vampire socio-political issues happening in the background, he also wants to figure out why he's suddenly bisexual. That part was done well enough, I mean - there were some problems with it like the fact that Travis doesn't just slowly start to go bisexual, he becomes IMMEDIATELY SUPER HOT FOR MARCUS AND NO ONE ELSE, and then eventually sort of slides into finding other men attractive, but his attraction to Marc is like 100000% OFF THE CHARTS AT FIRST SIGHT CLEARLY HE IS YOUR OTP. And obviously this confuses Travis, because he'd been straight before, and the eventual answer to why is that everybody becomes bisexual as a vampire because (I guess??? this wasn't explicitly stated) eating and sex are closely tied for them (???) and vampires see EVERYBODY as prey and so eventually every vampire gets an equal attraction to every sex. That part made sense but the way it was depicted in Travis was not like that, it was 100% SUPER GAY AND HOT FOR YOU, for Marcus, vaguely gay for other dudes but seriously not really. Which is why the sort of fuckbuddy, non-emotion relationship between him and Marc was so disappointing because Travis really did have a lot of feelings about Marc, just in general - seeing him as support, as someone to trust, as comfort, as a friend, and I really thought there'd be a better follow through with it. Once they start sleeping together the relationship pretty much stagnates and the rest of the plot is what gets focused on, and even though they'll like...be having sex with other people in the same room together and HATING those other people and staring each other down as they have sex with these people because clearly they'd rather be having sex with each other...they're not going to talk about it. Travis even internally freaks out at one point when he thinks Marc is going to say something emotionally intimate to him. So it's this weird combination of SUPER HOMO meets NO HOMO, because most (though not all) of the other sex Travis has that's not with Marc is with women. And Marc has sex with women as well.
So yeah, it's not a very good m/m book. Although it is a pretty interesting story. I did really like the vampire-human dynamics and how the program Travis had to go through in wake of his turning was run by humans so vampires are like "that shit is pointless and teaches you nothing" and cool little details like no wooden hockey sticks for vampires because you could accidentally kill yourself or other players (via a wooden stake through the heart, basically) and vampire junkies and the debate about the Stanley cup and Travis's inability to get police interested in who turned him or the stuff about consent; there was clearly a lot of thought put into the worldbuilding and even the vampire hockey leagues made sense enough even if there wasn't a lot of thought put into why some of these people would be playing hockey. Travis, yes, he made sense because he's a modern guy who was already a hockey player and it's his life and he just wants to keep doing it, but why these couple centuries old French and Russian guys? Why were almost ALL the vampires on the Cobras foreign? WHY A GLADIATOR? Again, Marc really shouldn't have had a POV, because it messed a lot of stuff up about the story. It made it seem like it was going to have much more of a relationship focus, when clearly that's not what this book wanted to be about, and forgot about the relationship most of the way through. Although I did like that the sex scenes were not long drawn out IKEA sex; it just kind of happened in a few paragraphs and then bam, done. Although that did lend itself it taking any emotional connection out of it because they just kind of fuck and are done.
There is really a lot that is never followed up on though. Again, a lot of that problem is from sticking Marc's POV in there. Take that out and there could have been more of a follow-up with Travis's family, a little more time given to when Travis finds the guy who turns him and the emotional fall out of that, more actual meaning to his relationship with Marc, maybe more time building up the hockey team itself and the reason Travis was so heavily recruited for the Cobras - making them actually work together as a team. Despite it being about vampires playing hockey, the hockey part was extremely secondary. The Travis-deals-with-vampirism and Travis-deals-with-human-issues-as-a-vampire were the most focused on aspects of the book. But there was too much book for one book, basically. Things had to get squished, dropped, forgotten about, or not paid enough attention to in order to fit into the story. It was enjoyable enough of a read, but I hope there's a second one or that total ball-drop of a relationship is gonna make me annoyed forever, mostly because a lot was promised and then never given.
Blood on the Ice by Katriena Knights
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
3.5 stars
This was a book I picked up from a Slash Pile rec. Because I'm still after skating fics in wake of the Olympics and hey hockey is fun and I know a little bit about it, and since it can be a little brutal I figured 'hey, immortal probably near indestructible vampires playing it will be ridiculous but fun to read about' and the sample was well-written enough to pique my interest.
Well, a LOT of it is done well. The book essentially has three main plots - the first being Travis (a guy who gets turned into a vampire at the very start of the book) coming to terms with being a vampire and all that entails in relation to his normal life, his job, his sex life, and relationships with other people, human and vampire. The second is Travis dealing with the hanging threads of his human life and trying to either rectify them, tie them up, or forget them (who turned him, the Stanley cup, his parents, his girlfriend, his friends and former hockey teammates). The third plot is the poorest and the most disappointing, which is the relationship part. Marcus Aurelius, who is a bajillion years old and decides he wants to be a hockey player, sure, is the love interest and occasional POV guy.
He shouldn't have been, first of all. Because his POV brings up SO many interesting things that are NEVER ADDRESSED (and seriously why the hell does he want to be playing hockey? If he wanted to reminisce about gladiatorial rings or whatever he should have gone into boxing or rugby). Like the one throw-away line about how he's finding 'prey' that reminds him of Travis, and Travis in turn reminds him of someone he 'cared for a long time ago'. BUT WE DON'T GET THIS STORY! We don't get who Travis reminds him of or anything about his past AT ALL, the guy is like 2,000 years old HE'S HAD A HUGELY LONG AND VERY INTERESTING LIFE NO MATTER WHAT. Because about halfway through the book Marcus stops being a POV character. Like, he is, for very short pointless chunks, but at the start of the book it was almost alternating chapters between them. He also states REALLY early on in his POV that he's basically going to fall in love with Travis whether he wants to or not...and this is never followed up. That's because the relationship can't decide if they're just fuckbuddies or if they're falling in love. Travis can't decide because he's why-homo-ing for most of the book and Marcus's POV fades out completely, by the end of the book they're both still having sex freely with other people and act much more like fuckbuddies except for the part where you're reading it and remembering all the intense emotions that Marcus has been directing at Travis basically the ENTIRE BOOK, and in return all the intense sexual feelings Travis has had for Marcus the ENTIRE BOOK, but yet...no?? There's no resolution.
Basically what should have happened here was two books. Travis gets one and Marcus gets the other. Because Travis has enough story going on to completely hold up the book on his own, and actually all the stuff going on with him is really interesting and well done, although the 'vampires playing hockey' bit is actually a little bit like...forgotten about? Games are described but not in much detail after Travis shoots a goal literally through a goalie's chest; it's everything else that's the focus, because he wants to know who turned him, he wants to get his name on the Stanley cup because his prior team won it but technically he 'died' before that happened and so there's actually a lot of background human-vampire socio-political issues happening in the background, he also wants to figure out why he's suddenly bisexual. That part was done well enough, I mean - there were some problems with it like the fact that Travis doesn't just slowly start to go bisexual, he becomes IMMEDIATELY SUPER HOT FOR MARCUS AND NO ONE ELSE, and then eventually sort of slides into finding other men attractive, but his attraction to Marc is like 100000% OFF THE CHARTS AT FIRST SIGHT CLEARLY HE IS YOUR OTP. And obviously this confuses Travis, because he'd been straight before, and the eventual answer to why is that everybody becomes bisexual as a vampire because (I guess??? this wasn't explicitly stated) eating and sex are closely tied for them (???) and vampires see EVERYBODY as prey and so eventually every vampire gets an equal attraction to every sex. That part made sense but the way it was depicted in Travis was not like that, it was 100% SUPER GAY AND HOT FOR YOU, for Marcus, vaguely gay for other dudes but seriously not really. Which is why the sort of fuckbuddy, non-emotion relationship between him and Marc was so disappointing because Travis really did have a lot of feelings about Marc, just in general - seeing him as support, as someone to trust, as comfort, as a friend, and I really thought there'd be a better follow through with it. Once they start sleeping together the relationship pretty much stagnates and the rest of the plot is what gets focused on, and even though they'll like...be having sex with other people in the same room together and HATING those other people and staring each other down as they have sex with these people because clearly they'd rather be having sex with each other...they're not going to talk about it. Travis even internally freaks out at one point when he thinks Marc is going to say something emotionally intimate to him. So it's this weird combination of SUPER HOMO meets NO HOMO, because most (though not all) of the other sex Travis has that's not with Marc is with women. And Marc has sex with women as well.
So yeah, it's not a very good m/m book. Although it is a pretty interesting story. I did really like the vampire-human dynamics and how the program Travis had to go through in wake of his turning was run by humans so vampires are like "that shit is pointless and teaches you nothing" and cool little details like no wooden hockey sticks for vampires because you could accidentally kill yourself or other players (via a wooden stake through the heart, basically) and vampire junkies and the debate about the Stanley cup and Travis's inability to get police interested in who turned him or the stuff about consent; there was clearly a lot of thought put into the worldbuilding and even the vampire hockey leagues made sense enough even if there wasn't a lot of thought put into why some of these people would be playing hockey. Travis, yes, he made sense because he's a modern guy who was already a hockey player and it's his life and he just wants to keep doing it, but why these couple centuries old French and Russian guys? Why were almost ALL the vampires on the Cobras foreign? WHY A GLADIATOR? Again, Marc really shouldn't have had a POV, because it messed a lot of stuff up about the story. It made it seem like it was going to have much more of a relationship focus, when clearly that's not what this book wanted to be about, and forgot about the relationship most of the way through. Although I did like that the sex scenes were not long drawn out IKEA sex; it just kind of happened in a few paragraphs and then bam, done. Although that did lend itself it taking any emotional connection out of it because they just kind of fuck and are done.
There is really a lot that is never followed up on though. Again, a lot of that problem is from sticking Marc's POV in there. Take that out and there could have been more of a follow-up with Travis's family, a little more time given to when Travis finds the guy who turns him and the emotional fall out of that, more actual meaning to his relationship with Marc, maybe more time building up the hockey team itself and the reason Travis was so heavily recruited for the Cobras - making them actually work together as a team. Despite it being about vampires playing hockey, the hockey part was extremely secondary. The Travis-deals-with-vampirism and Travis-deals-with-human-issues-as-a-vampire were the most focused on aspects of the book. But there was too much book for one book, basically. Things had to get squished, dropped, forgotten about, or not paid enough attention to in order to fit into the story. It was enjoyable enough of a read, but I hope there's a second one or that total ball-drop of a relationship is gonna make me annoyed forever, mostly because a lot was promised and then never given.