Since it's friday, it's vampires ' day.... however being quite sick i haven't managed to read a book i could share with you so i decided to make a short comparison between two series Black Dagger Brotherhood series written by JR Ward and the Midnight Breed Series by Lara Adrian. Why? because while speaking to a friend with have come to see the similarities and differences beteween these series and i thought i could share that with you.
First i will precise that i'm reading those series in French so there are a lot of books not translated yet, perhaps my opinion will change later but so far here i'm.
In both series, we are confronted to a class of warriors who are not really accepted by the vampires’ society. They are outcast with a reputation to be barbarians, violent, for some they should not exist anymore. With the violence and attacks becoming more frequent their reputation is a little better but still they aren’t invited to the famous reunion and people prefer to avoid them.
In the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, there is a little difference in the way that they also have a school for future warrior (a way to recruit those who fit the role) and that there is a hierarchy so if the warrior come from a noble family then he still has that power even if he is a warrior.
In the Midnight Breed series, the hierarchy comes with the blood: the less generation you have between you and the original aliens the more powerful you are (GEN1 are the sons of the original aliens.) Because yes, here vampire are in fact aliens descendants. However, for the ones who are several generation below, the hierarchy comes with politics alliance and such and for them warrior are the problem not the solution.
The plot: we have several similarities in the stories but the main one is how the story is told. In both series we start with the leader romance, in both series we have one warrior emotionally scarred, one disfigured or with a physical weakness so reading both can give you an impression of “déjà vu” sometimes.
One big difference for me is the women’s status. In the Midnight Breed series vampires are all male. Their women are human female who have a special mark somewhere on their body. By regular blood exchange those can see their life expanded. Normally when they are found, because rare, they are precious, a blood exchange create a definitive link so blood isn’t a little matter. Often they grow in vampire community where they are protected and cherished. However some are found later or never and are in the “human world”. The thing is that these special women all have a specific power (they transmit it to their son) can be seeing ghosts, healing, telepathy, etc.
In the Black Dagger brotherhood series, vampires can be male or female, some female are in a sacred cast, kind of priestess, normally at the service of the warrior cast. They are supposed to give their blood to unmated warrior etc. Because, yes, here vampires drink vampires blood. They could drink human one but it’s not sufficient. The “divinity” is female but I really don’t like her, she is too cruel to my taste. The rest of the vampire females are under the power of their father, bother or mate, not really free. Supposedly it’s for their protection but for long nothing was done to those who abused that power.
It’s the female part that makes my heart prefer the Midnight Breed series, I love the fact that they aren’t puppet, they have power and don’t hesitate to use it to help the men the love and to protect them. In the Black Dagger brotherhood, they are more submitted, some are different but they are considered less and it bothers me. I will still continue both series a bit but the one by Lara Adrian has my preference so far.
Did you read those series? What do you think?
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I haven't read the Midnight Breed series. This is gonna get put on my list.
RépondreSupprimerI've only read the first four books in the BDB series and I've really enjoyed readingn them.
Perhaps teh first one we read has our preference because i've started with the Lara adrian one.
Supprimeri've read the 5 or 6 first book of black dagger brotherhood and it's not that i don't like them just there aren't my favorite ( one was better than the other^^) i dislike the black virgo so so much
I completely understand why you prefer Lara Adrian because she was the first you read. Not just that, we each have our own preference as to what we like in literature. I need to find the time to read the Midnight Breed series. I've heard much about it.
SupprimerAlso, Now that I think about it, I only read the first three of BDB. The third one is perhaps my favorite. Not sure when I'll go back to read the rest of the series but I do hope to continue it.
I've read the first four BDB series and I'm finding them a bit too formulaic. But there's enough to interest me that I'll probably carry on reading. I'll probably pick them up when I see them cheap of second hand.
RépondreSupprimerit's a bit my idea for this series too because those books are quite expensive too
SupprimerI've read the entire BDB series and loved it! I agree that the men take the show in this series, but you will see that the women are powerful as well. Especially Xhex!
RépondreSupprimerI haven't read the Midnight Breed series yet, but now you have piqued my interest! It's been on my TBR list for a long time.
i'm curious to see how it will happens then ^^ and also about what you will think of the midnight breed series
SupprimerThey are both really formulaic but BDB is a bit better plotwise. I'm still reading it while I gave up on the last two books of Midnight Breed where women inevitably end up barefoot and pregnant :))) There is actually another pretty similar series that started at the same time as these two. Darkyn by Lynn Viehl. It's a mix of PNR and UF which I found much more to my taste.
RépondreSupprimerGreat topic, Miki!
Thank you a lot! I haven't heard of Darkyn before but now i'm curious i will see if i can find it, thanks.
Supprimer+JMJ+
RépondreSupprimerWhen I saw the title, at first I thought you were going to be comparing the BDB with a PNR series featuring dragons that also has a lot in common with it. (I had to look up the name of the other series, which is Dragonfury.)
I've read a few BDB books and thought they were okay, but I soon grew really tired of the world building. I didn't like the Scribe Virgin (Is that her name? I can't recall!) at all, and soon I felt that the situations were getting really absurd. I vastly preferred Kresley Cole's Immortals after Dark series (although I haven't been following it lately), which I find more lighthearted. Have you read it?
Your point about the BDB female characters being considered lesser strikes a chord with me. I confess that it didn't bother me too much when I was reading, but it does make them much less interesting than the male characters. In fact, it seems as if the men have all the fun!
I haven't read anything by Kresley Cole yet, i'm tempted to try the immortals afetr dark series since i've heard a lot of good things about it, i need to add those on my wishlist
SupprimerDid you think of the series Dragonfury by Coreene Callahan? If yes i haven't read it yet either but i tried to win it ^^ and now you made me even more curious
+JMJ+
SupprimerThat's the one! I haven't read any of the books, although it was another blogger's direct comparison of them to the BDB novels that made me want to.