Black Blade

by Eric Van Lustbader

"There are plots within plots, circles within circles....Lustbader fans will lap it up."
ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION
In New York City, a chain of brutal murders begins....In Washington, a plot conceived at the highest levels of American government is at work to bring the economic colossus of Japan to its knees....In Tokyo, a critical power struggle is nearing its final stages for control of the enigmatic Black Blade Society, an ostensibly political cabal whose motives may encompass far more than politicis....

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Action, Crime, Japan, Novels, Espionage

544 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 20, 1992

About the author

Eric Van Lustbader was born and raised in Greenwich Village. He is the author of more than twenty-five best-selling novels, including The Ninja, in which he introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction's most beloved and enduring heroes. The Ninja was sold to 20th CenturyFox, to be made into a major motion picture. His novels have been translated into over twenty languages.

Mr. Lustbader is a graduate of Columbia College, with a degree in Sociology. Before turning to writing full time, he enjoyed highly successful careers in the New York City public school system, where he holds licenses in both elementary and early childhood education, and in the music business, where he worked for Elektra Records and CBS Records, among other companies.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/ericva...

Reviews

[Scott]

Before I go on with this review I feel I should mention that I'm very fond of some of Eric Lustbader's books, particularly the Nicholas Linnear saga and French Kiss, Zero, etc. so I was really surprised to find myself struggling through half the book before finally giving up, something I do extremely rarely. The problem is there are too many different themes at play making the book disjointed and suffer from a lack of focus, and there are a lot of background stories and little characterization. It's all very well having a complex plot but I simply didn't care what happened to any of the characters. Also, it all gets a bit silly with everybody, computers included, having special magical abilities, which are never really explained and that's before I touch on the casual racism (watch out for any appearances by Chief Breathard, it borders on hilarious). As another reviewer has pointed out, this all simply 'obfuscates' (new word for me too, I must admit) the plot further rendering the book boring and extremely disappointing.

[I.D.]

There are way too many little subplots going on here for what is essentially a story about shaman powers, a rich old dude who wants to live forever and a secret society of evil Japanese killers. The author seems to really wish he was writing literary but is in fact doing b-movie stuff. Lots of pretentiousness for something that needed more directness. Also this is one of those books where the main character (Wolf Matheson) is so amazing and perfect that even all the other characters can't stop talking about him when he's not there.
With a few minor changes, this could almost be a parody novel, but its dead serious.

[Kay Donner]

NOT my favortite Lustbader book...harder to follow, than the Bourne series; not a bad story line. He must have learned a new word and in the first 1/3 of the book used it repeatedly..I in turn learned a new word.

[Steven]

Before I started this I saw quite a few negative reviews but as I loved the ninja series I thought I'd give it a go. At first I did struggle and thought to myself might not finish this but around the 200 page mark it got really good and haven't put it down since.

[Steven]

Abandoned after the first 65 of 600+ pages. I used to like Lustbader a lot more, but now I see it mostly as a dark but boring variety of fantasy with some kinky stuff thrown in. It seems to me the author keeps writing the same book, or perhaps it was just that this one didn't seem very original to me. It's about a police captain that has to solve a set of murders in NYC, done by a mysterious Japanese supervilain, and he can only do that with his own set of mystical superpowers. Which sounds kinda cool, but the pacing is ponderous and the story predictable and full of clichés.

[Theophilus (Theo)]

Once again New York, Japan, and the rest of the world are all unknowing potential victims in an international plot to ruin their economies.

[Sammy]

Barely-there characters; a husk of an MC. Deaths that don’t stick nor have any weight. A storyline that bores and sticks around far too long. Concludes a book that has nothing notable about it except its need to boil down women to needless sex objects with little to no agency, and that the main antagonist of the story is simply defeated by being pushed out a window. Nothing truly inoffensive yes, but every word leads the reader to care less and less about anything this book was trying to present. More use of it would come from knocking someone over the head with the hefty hardcover, you’d get more entertainment. It is more hassle than it's worth.

1/10 – because of how unnecessarily long and drawn-out it is. If it weren’t so, perhaps a low 2. Pretty crazy too with how it made one of the female characters immediately have sex with her sister’s boyfriend after finding out said sister was brutally murdered. Thank you, Lustbader. True cinema.

[Robb Coulter]

This book definately had the potential to be better than 2 stars. There were some very good characters, you know who you are Chika, but over all although I waited until the very last page for the book to grab me it just never quite did. Perhaps it was a little confusing and certainly somewhat over written. The ending also did little to solve Wolfs problems with the law in the US. The book was over long...mabe cut out some of the pathos and finish the problems for the main protagonist....just saying.

[Jason Walker]

My absolute all time favorite novel!!!

[noemi [dogeatsreads]]

Read this over a decade ago in high school and really loved it so I'm gonna hunt this book down for a reread!!

[Jared Marsh Turner]

Even *I* could do better than that.

[Gail Cook]

great read

[Donald Trump]

Bigly!
*** 3 Stars.

[Mahrukh]

I hated this and left it. I hated how sexist the book felt and how it portrayed the Japanese and the indigenous Americans. This book was torture to the point that my reading decreased.

[Sinisa]

I thought this will be impossible to say about Eric Lustbader's book but this is bad.Nicholas Linnear and Jason Bourne ware awesome but this is a book I struggled not to droop out, which would be smart move. Be smart and pick something else.

[Matt]

His early books (Sunset Warrior sequence, Beneath an Opal Moon) were stunning, but this is weak and pointless. I wonder whether it was actually written by a computer.

I could see what he was trying to do, and at the end he sort of succeeded, but there was so much pointless meandering that it got boring. If I hadn't been on a plane with nothing else to read I probably wouldn't have bothered.

Too much squelchy, smelly sex for me. Maybe I've just grown up since I read his first books some 30+ years ago.

[Greer Andjanetta]

A long, dark, intense novel. A fantasy novel with shape shifters, mind readers, levitators and more. There are many characters and many plots in this book, probably enough for 3 complete books. The plot is complicated and complex, well-written as Lustbader's work usually is but the reader has quite a challenge sorting out who's who and which side are they on.

[María Ciancio]

Pretty cool, I liked the "makura no hiruma" idea, because I'm fond of the fantasy/action combination, and the american/japanese cultural remarks...
But...
I'm thinking perhaps the translation wasn't that good. The wording seemed a bit confusing.
Aside from that, I found it a little "cold", if that makes sense. Didn't feel too attached to the story, or any character in particular.

[Buddhagan]

Action packed. Urban setting with a bit of mysticism. Suffers from the same issue as many male authors.

***trigger warning*** There's a scene of pedophilia. Older woman raped a 10 yr old boy under the guise of some sort of ritual. The author could had done away with this and the novel would have lost nothing. What was the purpose???

[Isshi69nikkei]

first half was boring and there was nothing I liked. BUT I didn't put it away and give Lustbader one last chance after few his books that was completely unreadable. Anyway - second half was ok. It's a pity I had to suffer for so long before some cool action really started.

[Len]

I didn't like this book. The story is not that good. Character development is poor. Somewhat cross between fantasy, action, packed with magic. I'm not even sure about it's genre. I regret buying and reading this. It just a waste of time.

[Marxilyn Briz]

Heart racing, full of lust and treachery, mischief. Every chapter was written in every detail that will affect you even when your asleep. The author's playful mind will successfully hypnotize the reader. It will surely shake you.

[Evander]

This is probably closer to 3.5 or maybe 3 for a few reasons. It was pretty slow in the first half of the book and then the very end seemed very rushed and abrupt. Also, there were a lot of racist comments in there.

[Ocean]

For the life of me, I cannot get myself to finish this book. Rarely have I gotten this bored while reading, my mind just keeps wandering off. There are many characters and subplots, too many, that and the long descriptions..

[Tessa Small]

Plots within plots. Intrigue and suspense, action and well developed characters.

[Dima]

boring, predictable, unnecessarily too long, some characters I couldn't follow...

[Fardin Anwar]

Had a different flavor from what i read normally. xD

[Velvetink]

Donated to the Smith Family Charity March 2015

[CountZeroOr]

I'll try to get a review of this up in two weeks. But god was this a spectacularly dumb book.