Who Are You

Blackout
by Rob Thurman
p. 2012

The sixth novel in Rob Thurman’s series about half-human Cal Leandros starts out a little differently than the others, with a mystery... sort of. Our intrepid narrator wakes up alone on a beach in South Carolina, surrounded by dead monsters and without a single memory to call his own. The reader may know it’s our very own Caliban, but Cal is completely in the dark... until his past shows up to reclaim him in the form of one very protective older brother and a sarcastic puck.

Thus begins the central plot point in Thurman’s Blackout: Cal has lost his memory thanks to a nasty dose of venom from one of the creatures he fought. It’s not any kind of crippling amnesia, thankfully. More the made-for-TV kind of selective amnesia that still leaves the important parts intact. In this case, Cal retains his fighting skills, his knowledge of the supernatural, his overactive emo-angst, and—most impressively—his snarky sense of humor. The first three I could excuse with minimal hand-waving. The fighting skills and knowledge of the supernatural? Sure, I’ll accept that as muscle memory, instinct and luck of the draw. The angst-overdrive is not too crazy either, considering Cal’s situation; hell, I’d be doing a lot of freaking out myself if I forgot who I was and woke up amidst dead creatures. For some reason, it’s the sarcasm I have the most trouble buying. It’s Cal’s background and surroundings that give him that inimitable sass; I just have a hard time accepting that it comes to him naturally.

But I get it, I do. I can imagine Thurman sitting down attempting to try this new thing out and realizing that it was just half the fun with a fundamentally altered Cal. I mean, what is a Thurman novel without crippling sarcasm and dueling wits? So she kept her favorite elements while still giving us a slightly different Cal. Unfortunately, I think this Cal just wasn’t altered enough to create an interesting character development. In fact, I believe Thurman missed a huge opportunity to do something new and unexpected with her central character, and as a result, I was a little let down by Blackout.

I would have loved seeing a dramatically altered Cal, one who has forgotten about all the supernatural, and not just his own demonic heritage. How intriguing would it have been to see him try out being an average guy, to truly believe a normal life was possible... only to find out as his memory returned that he could never be that guy? How intriguing to see if Niko could let his brother go if it meant he could be truly (if ignorantly) happy for once? It would have been heartbreaking, sure, but Thurman’s never been one to shy away from devastating character developments. I would happily have withstood a ‘Cal-less’ novel for the payoff of his inevitable revelation.

Regardless, I did find Amnesia-Cal’s verbal sparring with Niko and Goodfellow to be highly entertaining, more and more so as his memories returned to him and he settled in to his ‘new’ old life. I found myself laughing out loud at the scene when Cal—after finally disposing of the decomposing thorn in his side that was the mummy, Wahanket—charitably adopts the former informant’s mummified pet cats and descends on Goodfellow’s swanky apartment with the whole herd of them. That entire development was pure gold, and I’m glad Cal finally found an animal that likes him in the form of Spartacus.

Cal’s amnesia came at a good time, too. Our favorite half-human, half-Auphe got some hard truths dealt to him in Roadkill, not to mention an ultimatum in regards to his gate traveling abilities. After finding out you may inherit your evil forebears’ cruel tendencies in spite of everything you’ve fought against, who wouldn’t want to run away, forget everything, and start anew? For a while, I actually wondered if Cal’s condition was a mental defense self-constructed or brought on by Rafferty’s meddling, but it really did end up being the Nepenthe spider venom controlling his memories. The only ‘twists’ in Blackout were that a) Niko was re-dosing Cal out of some misguided notion of protection and b) a sort of out-of-the-blue revelation that Cal had living ‘siblings,’ courtesy of failed Auphe experimentation prior to his birth. Not sure why this was included at the end of this novel, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore! Unless, of course, it was just to plant the idea in our head that there could be more ‘successful’ hybrids running around to be dealt with in the future. If that is the case, things could get really interesting. And really, why wouldn’t there be? Why stop at one, especially when that one is so inherently resistant to their ideals? I wouldn’t be surprised if we get an anti-Cal somewhere down the road.

Blackout’s ‘big bad,’ Ammut, is the first lady big bad, but on the whole, she doesn’t differ much from the other main villains. In fact, she is probably the least visible of all the central antagonists, as she barely appears. I guess I’m okay with this; it meant we were spared some banal villain dialogue and it made the whole thing murkier because it’s easy to forget who the real problem is when you’re so far removed from your nemesis. Promise is back, but she stays away for most of the novel, giving Amnesia-Cal some space as he relearns how to accept monsters into his life. The Delilah problem is progressing slowly, but I’m interested to see how it turns out. There isn’t much else to say because the point of view this time around is all Amnesia-Cal. I did get a kick out of his outside take on Niko-as-martyr-brother, if only because it addressed something I’d thought before—that Niko really is perfect and needs a good wake-up call where his brother is concerned. Overall, not my favorite Cal Leandros novel, but it gave me some new things to think about going forward.