I just finished Bloodlines. It wasn't what I would have expected from a Deathlands novel writen by Lawrence James. The vapires created by the military scientists idea was original as far as I know. My only real problem with the book was the vague refrences to them being able to fly. That was a bit hard to swallow. I found the story to be interesting, and the book to be a good quick read. It was good to see some little bits of predark life with the traveling movie maker. I give it an 8.

The adventures of Ryan's group bring them through another mat-trans jump to a gateway in the bayou of Louisiana. The party is unable to get into the actual redoubt, which is devoted to scientific biological experiments. This I believe is the same redoubt unveiled in the Outlanders novel Shadow Scourge.

They journey to a town where a confrontation leads to Ryan being temporarily blinded. This was an interesting element to the story, because much of the adventure is seen from the perspective of a blind Ryan. He must rely on his friends, especialy Krysty, to lead him around and describe what they are seeing. After Ryan's exciting battle in the swamp against an aligator, the gang end up meeting with an odd albino who invites them to his mansion near the town. This is where the novel gets real spooky.

The last half of the book takes place inside the large old home of these strange people known as The Family. This part of the novel was spooky and suspenseful. This was the strength of the book, balancing out the fact that this was not the typical action and excitiment of most of the novels in the series. I liked the fresh direction this book went, all the vampire theme and creepy and smelly rooms of the house made an atmoshere of a fun to read adventure novel. A good battle with the vampires and another cliffhanger ending cap off this solid Deathlands episode.

Bloodlines had tremendous areas of good reading, but fell far short in the movie department bit.
I liked a lot of this book though, but with the advent of the movie guy and Ryan falling for the oldest trick in the book, left me feeling that this was definately not one of the best.
The strongest part of the book was seeing Ryan handle the blindness put upon him by the old woman's blaster.
The whole part with the battle with the mutie gator was vintage James. Krysty and Ryan bonding over his weakness was another great reading section. And when Ryan drank from the obviously poisoned drink offered to him by the woman baron - that was it! I knew Ryan was much smarter than to fall for this.
The vampires were written pretty well, but just did not seem to fit this storyline.
But still a good read nontheless.

This is a 10 all the way.. It involves the "Family" a group of well.. Vampires.. part of what is hinted as, as the Eternal or eternity concept.. its a awesome read.. the companions go to a crappy ville, and find that for a century the ville has been controlled by the same "Family"

They meet a aspiring film maker on the road and travel with him to this old ville, soon at a pre=dark movie theater the first of the "Family" makes his appearance..

This book has a haunted creepy feel to it.. DNA vampires for the future.. One of the best books by JL written!!