The NightDragon #3: Simian by Scott Blasingame

The NightDragon #3: Simian by Scott Blasingame

I've enjoyed all of Blasingame's novels up so far, and "Night Dragon: Simian" is no exception. Once more, Blasingame proves that he's the Lau Kar-Leung, Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen of prose (and even some pre-Crouching Tiger Yuen Woo-Ping, too). Blasingame takes that sort of comparison even further, as at one point in the story, the characters stop to have a conversation about old school kung fu movies!

The story is simple, although it lets on to a particularly complex backstory and promises to get complicated by the end of the final chapter, which leaves things in the air. A month after the events of the previous book, NighDragon: DI3, the police investigation into NightDragon's activities have uncovered that a copycat is on the prowl, beating the ever-living snot out of muggers who prey on the norms like you and I. Said copycat is Simian, a monkey man of the Moreau variety, who posesses the agility, strength and durability of an orangutan on speed and the intelligence of a human being. Soon, the Eagle Team and the police are trying to capture Simian and return him to the laboratory he escaped from, while NightDragon is tasked with capturing him for the shadowy agency he works for. And NightDragon's alter-ego, Johnny, is caught in the middle.

One of the best things about Blasingame's writing, as I've probably mentioned in other reviews, is that the characters are likable--even the ones that are outright arrogant jerks--enough and their interactions are fun to read, in such a way that I never find myself impatiently reading just to get to the next fight sequence. The story is simple, but allows for some twists and moral grey areas, as NightDragon finds himself questioning his employers' motives in wanting Simian. He finds himself making questionable decisions in the pursuit of doing what he thinks is right, even if it may bring consequences later on down the line.

Blasingame also ups the ante on the fights, introducing an opponent, Simian, who is more than human in all physical aspects. Where DI3 represented some of the best fighters that humanity had to offer, Simian goes beyond that and pushes ND's martial arts skills to their limit, since all martial arts were founded as self-defense against people, not Moreau-esque aberrations. Blasingame also gets in touch with his inner Shaw, with a series of traditional kung fu duels between one of the main characters and the local kung fu schools in a subplot straight out of the recent IP MAN 2.

Anyway, this was lots of fun to read and I look forward to finishing his fourth book and writing about that.