urban fantasy

The Hollows, Book II

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I enjoyed the first Hollows book enough that I got the second one (and the third).  The second book is called The Good, the Bad and the Undead. Again going for the Clint Eastwood-y titles.  Now that I’ve read a couple more of these books I can say that 1) I like Kim Harrison’s writing style and 2) I’m not figuring out the answer halfway through the book which is major plus points for Harrison.

In this book, Rachel Morgan is struggling to make her way as an independent runner. A runner is basically a supernatural bounty hunter/private investigator.  Being independent doesn’t get her the best paying jobs and will often get her stiffed by clients. In this book, she gets hired by bad boy Trent Kalamack to figure out who is killing ley line (borderline good/evil) witches in the city of Cincinnati.

In the course of the investigation, she gets wrapped up with the FIB again and has to babysit a pure human FIB agent in the Hollows (the Inderland or almost strictly supernatural section of Cincinnati). She also has to start using a magic she’s unfamiliar with (ley line) and that makes her uncomfortable. She finds out a deep dark secret about herself and her father that she didn’t know and manages to get into deeper trouble with a demon.

It was, overall, an enjoyable story but I do have something that annoys me about the series. Rachel Morgan. The character is bold (I like), stands up for herself (I like) and independent (I like). What I don’t like is that she is almost a complete and total moron when it comes to the Inderlanders.  She is not only an Inderlander herself (being a witch) but she grew up with Inderlanders and currently lives in the Inderland section of town.

How is it she doesn’t know what sets off her roomie’s vamp instincts? She has no idea that fighting them when they corner you makes them want to bite you more. Um..DUH!  BIG FREAKIN’ DUH. They’re predators! That is what they do! Some of the other, littler things like particular scents I can understand, but that? Give me a break.

It seems that she spent quite a bit of her learning years going “la la la! I can’t hear you!” at her teachers and/or her own mother. All she knows about ley line magic, which isn’t necessarily evil but has the potential to be, is that she doesn’t like it.  Therefore, she didn’t bother to learn anything about it.  I don’t like snakes, but I’ve learned enough to stay safe when around them.

And she’s singularly obsessed with bringing down Trent Kalamack. Not that bringing down a potential bad guy (I’m not convinced the character is as bad as Rachel Morgan thinks) is a bad thing.  But she continually screws up every attempt to bring him to any kind of justice. She’s convinced that he’s actually the one behind the witch murders and almost pins it on him (before he hires her to clear his name). But she screwed it up by going into the crime scene before she was allowed to.  Again BIG FREAKIN’ DUH! She works for the law, she should know how it works even if it was her first murder scene.  I’ve never been at one myself (thank goodness) but I would try not to touch anything. Common sense wouldn’t you think?

Anyway, the other characters have more than enough common sense to make up for Morgan’s complete lack of it. Even still, I still have moments of WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?! The book as a whole is quite good and I’d rate it a solid B, points off for Morgan’s stupidity but added points for a spectacular ending.  Harrison’s writing is good enough for me to temper my natural hatred of idiots. 😀

The Hollows, Book I

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I just finished up Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison. I liked it well enough that I’m contemplating picking up the next one, The Good, The Bad and the Undead. Apparently Ms. Harrison is something of a Clint Eastwood fan. Rockin’.

Anyway, Dead Witch Walking features witch Rachel Morgan.  It starts out introducing to Rachel’s dead-end job hunting down supernatural creatures who break the law, in this case a leprechaun who was busted for tax evasion.  Turns out that Rachel’s really struggled in her job for some time now, no fault of her own we later find out.  She decides to quit, a risky proposition that could mean her death, and form a detective/bounty-hunting type business of her own.

Rachel successfully quits from the Federal Inderland Bureau (FIB)-the federal agency responsible for catching supernatural troublemakers-but brings her incredibly successful friend/roomie Ivy Tamwood (living vampire) with her.  Because of this, she starts getting attacked left, right and center from everything from faeries to demons, all of whom are being paid to hunt her down and dispose of her by her former living vampire boss.

Rachel survives by a combo of sheer luck and her friends Ivy and a pixie named Jenks.  Determined to get the death threat removed, she goes after a big bad guy by the name Trent, a city councilman.  Trent is his first name and because I don’t have the book up on my Kindle, I don’t have his last name. Read the book to find out! 😉 At any rate, Trent is into everything from smuggling Biodrugs (huuuuuuuuuuuuuugely taboo in this culture) to regular type drugs (called Brimstone). If she can bring him to the attention of the FIB’s rival bureau (the entirely human run IS), she can get them to pay the bounty money to lift the death threat.

I particularly enjoy the pixie character of Jenks.  He’s funny, brave and snarky.  I’m not to sure on Ivy yet, she seems a little spoiled to me.  Rachel Morgan is an acceptable enough female lead, but she is stubborn to the point of stupidity at times.  The nice thing is, she starts to recognize that at the end and attempts to change that.  It doesn’t take right away, making her a character to relate to.  She’s not perfect, she’s not gorgeous.

This could be a female Dresden Files, but with a little less (so far) the-world-actually-is-against-me angst. I rate this a solid B book, but with the caveat that I think it’s sort of like a chick flick only a novel.  Chi-novel?  While I can see my husband enjoying the Dresden Files (if he ever gave them a chance), I  don’t think he’d enjoy this as much, even with the Clint Eastwood theme names. Boys beware!

Cal Leandros, Part I

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I often use Amazon.com’s recommendation list to look for new books to read.  This doesn’t always come out well, as I’m sure you well know.  However, sometimes it pops up with some gems.  I found author Rob Thurman through the recommendations list on Amazon.com.

The first book of hers the list came up with was Deathwish. Unfortunately this was book 4 of a series that is 5 books total so far, so I was a little confused when I started reading it. Actually…I was a lot confused, and it put me off reading it for a while.  So did her writing style for this particular series.

Each chapter would start off with the name of a character (Cal, Nico, Promise etc).  That chapter would then be written from that character’s perspective.  Occasionally she will go over an event twice, once from Cal’s POV and once from Nico’s.  Generally speaking, if she went into details on some sort of action scene while under Cal’s POV, she would not rehash it in equal detail under Nico’s POV, which was good.

Deathwish kind of starts out in the middle of an action sequence that would have made a lot more sense to me if Amazon had bothered to inform me of the fact that this was book 4 of a series.  They do now list it as Deathwish (Cal Leandros, Book 4).  However, once I got over the fact that I was picking up in the middle of the series, it’s actually an enjoyable book.

The main character is, obviously now, Cal Leandros.  Cal being short for Caliban. Those of us who either had to read Shakespeare in high school or rather enjoy the Bard now that we have free time, will recognize the name from The Tempest as the sad and comic monster figure who was working for Propsero, though not because he wanted to. Cal may be a monster (being part Auphe) but he isn’t sad and is only occasionally comic.

He has an older brother by the name of Nico who basically took care of him from the moment he was born to present.  Nico knew what Cal was long before Cal ever did and he trained his brother from day one for the fact that one day, they were going to have one hell of a fight on their hands.

One of the more enjoyable characters of this arc is a puck named Robin Goodfellow. This character could, has and probably will again starred in pornos, written to Penthouse and authored the Kama Sutra.  And he is willing to expound upon it at length. Not that she ever gets truly graphic with it, but it is there.  The character of Robin Goodfellow is quite entertaining though and is definitely the main comic relief (just don’t say that to his face).

As you may have guessed, Rob Thurman isn’t afraid to break out the cussing, the violence or the sex.  There isn’t really an instance of overt sex in the book, but it is talked about ad nauseum by Goodfellow.  I don’t mind.  It makes it a little more realistic. If you’re getting into the situations that these two brothers get into on a regular basis, and you aren’t cussing a blue streak then, as Lewis Black says, “you have anger issues”.

At any rate, Deathwish was an enjoyable book and one that kept me guessing quite a bit.  I have a problem with being able to fairly accurately guess the outcome of things like books, TV shows and movies. It impresses my husband and sometimes my friends, but it also can make it hard to really get into a book.  When I think I figure it out, I start mentally going “please don’t let it turn out like I think it’ll turn out”. I didn’t really have that thought with this or the other two books of hers that I’ve read.

Eventually I might read the first three books of the Cal Leandros arc, but for now I have this one and Roadkill under my belt.  I grade this book as a B since I did have a tough time starting it and staying with it, but it was good overall. I would recommend starting at the beginning of the series because I would have if I’d known it was a series.

Back to My Beginnings

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I am really into vampires.  No, they aren’t real. No, I don’t pretend to be one.  And again, they do not sparkle! But I very much like to read books where the main characters are vamps.  It all started for me with the movie Interview with the Vampire.  Yes, the movie.  Before that, I always thought of fantasy creatures such as vampires and werewolves were scary.  This is probably because my dad liked the original Dracula with Bela Lugosi and other classic horror movies and impressed upon me that vampires = scary.

The movie Interview with the Vampire changed that perspective for me. I wasn’t really scared of anything in that movie. I was, however, very intrigued.  Vampires weren’t entirely monstrous.  Indeed, the main character of the movie, Louis, tries very much to be human.  He attempts not to live off human blood for the longest time and he treats Claudia as a daughter.

I watched that movie twice in a row the day I rented it.  The rest of my family thought I was nuts. They didn’t like the movie and I couldn’t really explain my infatuation with it. But when I watched it the second time (with the lights off, to increase the ambiance), I noticed that it was based on a novel by author Anne Rice.

I think I was in junior high school at this time, and I was mostly into reading Star Trek book s (Yes, I am a Trekkie-I was born one) and Three Investigators novels (which I recommend for younger readers).  I was a little wary about starting Interview with the Vampire.  Oh. My. God.  It was an amazing book.

To this day, I still own the first copy of it I ever read.  This is an A+ book.  Anne Rice has a beautiful way with words. You can almost see and feel what the characters are seeing and feeling.  Lestat could have been an entirely unlikable character what with how much he thinks only of himself, but there are layers to him that you can’t help but fall in love with.

Interview with the Vampire was the first in a series of novels by Anne Rice revolving around an core group of vampires (Lestat, Louis, Armand et al) and humans (the ‘boy’ reporter Daniel and a secretive group called the Talamasca).  The Vampire Chronicles arc spans eons, from Ancient Egypt to present, and does it well.  I suppose it isn’t quite ‘urban’ fantasy in its entirety, but still well worth the read. To this day, one of my favorite authors is Anne Rice.

The Dresden Files

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Since reviews of the books I’ve read will take a while, I decided to get the ball rolling with some recommendation blog posts.

First up is Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series.  I LOVE this series!  I used to hate books that were written in first person, but I’ve come to enjoy them thanks to this awesome series.  Butcher starts out with book one, Storm Front and just gets better from there.  I highly, highly recommend this series.  Harry Dresden is talented, irreverent and has a chip on his shoulder the size of Chicago.  On the whole I give the series an A+. It hooks you and reels you in so that you just can’t wait for the next book (trust me, right now I am lamenting the fact that the next Dresden novel doesn’t come out until March 2011).

The nice thing about the series is, you don’t necessarily to have to read the books in order to understand what happens in them.  It’s easier if you do, true, but Butcher does a good job of briefly recapping the previous bits of story line in each successive novel.

  • Storm Front: This is the first novel of the series and it’s pretty solid, even with introducing the main characters.  It isn’t quite as excellent as the later books, but I think that’s to be expected for a first novel. Magic, fairies and warlocks oh my! Overall, it’s a solid B novel.
  • Fool Moon: This novel focuses on werewolves and the many varieties thereof.  The series is stretching it’s wings, so to speak, and is introducing more recurring characters.  B/B+
  • Grave Peril: Introductions to Butcher’s view of vampires. Being a vampire story enthusiast, I was pleasantly surprised and intrigued by Butcher’s ideas of vampires.  Also introduces recurring character Michael Carpenter. The series really starts getting better from here. B+
  • Summer Knight: Good fairies, evil fairies and possibly evil exes (aren’t they all). A-
  • Death Masks: The Red Court returns just at the worst possible time, as the Blackened Denarians are in town.  A-
  • Blood Rites: This is one of my personal favorites in the series.  I love, love, love the character of Thomas the incubus half-brother of Harry Dresden.  A+
  • Dead Beat: Necromancy! Yay! But seriously, who doesn’t think that riding a resurrected T-Rex through Chicago is awesome? Polka will never die! A+
  • Proven Guilty: Introduction of Molly Carpenter as Harry’s plucky side kick.  Very good story, a little darker than the previous Dresden books maybe. A
  • White Night: Who’s killing off Chicago’s minor magic users? That’s what Harry wants to know! But no one wants to talk with him.  What else is new?  A-
  • Small Favor: Return of Ivy the Archive and one of my favorite characters, Kincaid. A
  • Turn Coat: Ah! A little bit of “I told you so” for Donald Morgan! Very good story. A+
  • Changes: Oh. My. God. Amazing, amazing book. But SOOOOOOOO frustrated with the end! A little spoiler: It is definitely going to leave you hanging…and not on a good note! I cannot wait for the next novel. A++
  • Short stories: Jim Butcher has an anthology of his Dresden short stories due out around October 2010. I’m definitely going to get it, but I have read some of them already from other anthologies.  As I am waiting, patiently, for this book Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files.

I recently recommended Storm Front to my father-in-law and he has gotten just as hooked as I have.  Butcher is a good, witty writer who can do a comedic scene just as well as an angsty scene or an action scene.  If anyone out there has read and enjoyed this series, I would love to hear from you on any authors/series that you would recommend along the lines of the Dresden Files.

Hello world!

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Recently I’ve become hooked on reading urban fantasy novels and anthologies.  My problem is that I stumbled into this fascinating genre via Jim Butcher’s awesome Dresden Files series and I had never even heard the term “urban fantasy” before.  I tried Googling for urban fantasy recommendations and didn’t find a whole lot out there.   So I figured that I would create my own blog for reviewing the books that I’ve read and asking people if they had any suggestions for similar books.

Like I said, I’ve been real into urban fantasy lately, but I also like some mystery, some action/adventure and even some history books.  So I’ll have a little bit of everything on my site eventually.

Just a bit of miscellany before I get started:

  • I am not looking for any reviews, recommendations or raves about the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer. I realize that I may piss off a horde of teenage fan girls out there, but I personally found the series dull. I’m sorry but vampires do not sparkle.
  • I do like Harry Potter. I adore Harry Potter.  I’m obsessed with Harry Potter. I’m sure I’ll get around to writing a review for those books eventually but since they are so popular, I’m sure I don’t need to recommend them to many people out there at this point.
  • I do not own any of the titles, characters, author’s names etc I may mention here. I’m not making any money off of this (though I would love to if I could).
  • I don’t care if you don’t agree with what I say, that’s your prerogative, however, please try to be civil in your posts and I’ll try and be civil in my responses.
  • I have read a lot of books and I would like to review most, if not all, of them eventually.  This means I may have to re-read them, so if new posts take a while, that’s why.

And now…to the show!