Synopses & Reviews
FIRST IN A BRAND NEW URBAN FANTASY SERIES
Because I'm an inbetweener and the only one anyone knows of at that the dead turn to me when something is askew between them and the living. Usually, its something mundane like a suicide gone wrong or someone revived that shouldn't a been.”
Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead's most unusual agents an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that's missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death.
One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He's summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they're spreading through the city like a plague. They've already taken out some of NYCOD's finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead.
But in uncovering this man's identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life and death.
Review
“Simply put, Daniel Jose Older has one of the most refreshing voices in genre fiction today.” Saladin Ahmed
Review
“A damn good read. All the best dark urban fantasies are about matters of life and death. Half-Resurrection Blues takes that to the limit. A hard-core, hard-driving fantasy, following the adventures of a most singular man who is both dead and alive and tasked with solving the problems of the dead and the living and everything in between. Except, of course, nothing is ever that simple. Daniel Jose Older takes aim at a whole bunch of familiar targets, and hits them hard in new and interesting ways.” New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green
Review
“Older has crafted a compelling new world in which the spirits that we sense lurking behind each monument are alive and well and the gatekeepers between the living and the dead may not have our best interests at heart. There's love and pain and fear and a deeply unsettling mystery that will keep you up at night. Half-Resurrection Blues is not just a daring new mode of ghost-detective story; it's also a courageous effort to celebrate the diverse voices that surround us. This is the New York of Puerto Ricans, Trinis, Haitians, and Yemenites. These are the people who don't make it into the movies, playing out their lives with agency in a riveting tale. And everyone must band together to stop the malevolent spirits that haunt the world of the living.” Deji Bryce Olukotun, author of Nigerians in Space
Review
“In Half-Resurrection Blues, Older has created Noir for the Now: equal parts bracing, poignant, compassionate, and eerie. A swinging blues indeed.” Nalo Hopkinson, Nebula Award-winning author of Sister Mine
Synopsis
First in the ghostly urban fantasy series by New York Times bestselling author Daniel Jos Older "Because I'm an inbetweener--and the only one anyone knows of at that--the dead turn to me when something is askew between them and the living. Usually, it's something mundane like a suicide gone wrong or someone revived that shouldn'ta been."
Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead's most unusual agents--an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that's missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind--until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death.
One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He's summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they're spreading through the city like a plague. They've already taken out some of NYCOD's finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld--which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead.
But in uncovering this man's identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life--and death....
About the Author
Daniel José Older is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and composer. He facilitates workshops on storytelling, music, and antioppression organizing at public schools, religious houses, and universities. He co-edited the anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History and his short stories and essays have appeared in Tor.com, Salon, BuzzFeed, the New Haven Review, PANK, Apex and Strange Horizons.