Once Again With Blood is a novel by Larry Weiner, published in 2014 as the second in the Island Trilogy.
Our Story once again begins with Kyle Brightman in the midst of a psychotic break, except this time he's explaining to a newbie orderly exactly what's up. After a bit of finagling on the part of Cate Hendrickson, he agrees to come back to work for Dory Parthenia on her new island, St. Ledo, setting up an ad campaign to rival the one on St. Agrippina.
Kyle is naturally suspicious of this, since it rings of the last time things went south on an island with supernatural elements on it, but is persuaded anyway, mostly because he's experiencing a bit of PTSD from the last island resort. At first it seems alright, but then he gets suspicious when he learns that the sponsors for the hotel don't drink...Vine...
Followed by Hindu Sex Aliens.
This novel provides examples of:
- Arms Dealer: Oscar has apparently done his best to get out of this business, despite keeping a significant supply on hand.
- Attractive Zombie: Cate Hendrickson.
- The Bartender
- This time Thierry runs a bar right near where Cate and Kyle are staying, which they use as a meeting point.
- Desmond does this again, apparently running most of the refreshments for both Island Hotels.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Desmond is a very polite, small, and outspokenly gay zombie that turns out to be just as good at this Rambo stuff as Oscar.
- Black Comedy Cannibalism: Swerves between this and horror at the zombies eating people.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sylvia Woodcock fits the bill to a T.
- Eternally Pearly-White Teeth: All of the zombies have these installed, enough that it's a key indicator as to who's really a zombie. It even gets them nicknamed "Pearly Whites." The Vampires seem to have something similar.
- Fiery Redhead: Cate is sarcastic as they come and also just about as Irish as it's possible to be.
- Funetik Aksent: Thierry Delasix, by way of the French Caribbean.
- Mood-Swinger: Kyle has Bipolar II, which is usually represented as this.
- No Name Given: Intentional on the part of the Woman and the Dog.
- Our Vampires Are Different: These seem to be your standard vampires, although with the "Stronger as they get older" Variant. It's also rather unclear if they can resist the demands of their sires or not.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Of the 'sentient as long as they eat brains' variety.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran
- Oscar seems to have recovered, mostly. At least enough to not really want to get into anymore fights.
- Kyle actually seems to have some flavors of this, as he's getting some PTSD from the previous book.
- Shout-Out: The Blues Brothers: Kyle is insistent in repeating "We're getting the band back together!" at nearly every opportunity.
- Talking Animal: The Dog is one after the events of the last book. Eventually gets a bit worse.
