Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)
by Kim Harrison
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Book Reviews of Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1)
Book Review: Decent Freshman Effort
Summary: 3 Stars
It was only natural that with the popularity of Laurell Hamilton's tough-gal alternate horror universe there would be others writing in the same vein (pardon the pun). Ms. Harrison's first installment, Dead Witch Walking, is quite promising but fails to capitalize on that initial promise.
In Ms. Harrison's mythos a quarter of the human race has been wiped out by a bioengineered virus that attached itself to the DNA string of a bioengineered tomato (a morality tale on the current higgledy-piggledy rush to bioengineer our foods without thought to the long term consequences?). Due to this catastrophe it is discovered that humanity shares the world with a large population of vampires, dhampirs, were-animals, pixies, fairies, witches, warlocks, etc., all called Inderlanders. The story is set 40 years after the viral plague and discovery of the Inderlanders.
The science is rather fuzzy and she never makes it clear what takes the place of pharma drugs in this mythos, presumably magic. Also, I got the impression Ms. Harrison never took the time to sort out where her vampires, weres and such came from but, rather, borrowed their origins from other places.
As a result of this tragedy, bioengineered drugs are now outlawed and biolabs are illegal. Naturally, this plays into the plot of the first book.
The main character, Rachel Morgan, is a bounty hunter, employed by an agency that hunts and arrests Inderlanders breaking the law as well as shutting down illegal biolabs. After a string of less prestigious 'tags' as the bounties are called, seemingly as a result of her incompetence, Rachel decides to quit her job and go freelance. Two associates, a living vampire and a pixie, decide to go with her.
The first chapter is difficult to get through; clearly Ms. Harrison was finding her 'voice' and did not go back to edit that chapter once she found it. She does set up an interesting premise within the first couple of chapters; Rachel is out of a job, kicked out of her apartment and has a price on her head all in one afternoon. Ms. Harrison then ruins this set up by having someone else solve most of Rachel's problems for her without creating new, bigger problems in their place. It would have been far more gritty and interesting to see how Rachel resolved these problems for herself but, the longer I read, I began to believe the character could not have done so on her own.
Unfortunately the rest of the story flags from a lack of direction and forward motion. Again, most likely the result of this being a first novel. A nebulous 'solution' to the Rachel's remaining problem of the bounty on her head appears in the form of 'tagging the bad guy'. If she can just prove the bad guy is the bad guy to everyone else and turn him in to her former agency she'll be in the clear. It is unclear how this will magically solve Rachel's problems, however. It becomes another example of the character's lack of forethought and planning and an example of the author's own struggles in creating a deeper, richer plot. Ultimately, it's a simplistic solution to a simplistic plot in a world that could have handled something far more complex and devious.
A more interesting story would have been to discover why Rachel's former boss hated her so much that he spends outrageous amounts of money to try to kill her (according to Rachel, who mentions it several times). The reasoning used for his dislike/hatred is flimsy at best. I never felt any urgency or worry that Rachel was going to actually get killed. It's difficult to create that tension in a book that is intended as the first of a series but it can be done if handled deftly.
There were several disappointments for me in this book. The simplistic plot, the lack of true forward motion created by Rachel herself (she seemed only to run in circles without doing much to solve her own problems). Another disappointment was Rachel's behavior. She comes across as little better than a ditzy bully, having little problem 'throwing down' with someone weaker than she is but when it comes to facing her living vampire roommate or the bigger bads she comes in contact with, Rachel becomes whiney, rude and cowardly. I am honestly surprised she doesn't wet 'em at some point in the book as scared as she is all the time. I need a character who has more ovaries than this, even while afraid. Not someone impervious to fear or danger but someone who isn't constantly telling the reader how scared she is, either. It seemed as though Ms. Harrison kept telling us how scared Rachel was to let us know it was time to be scared as well, which simply isn't necessary.
Beyond that Rachel does little to plan her actions and Ms. Harrison uses this carelessness on Rachel's part as a method of getting Rachel into peril, rather than balancing the character's preparation with the bad guy's resources. I don't want Rachel to be all knowing and always prepared but neither can I respect a character who simply dives into danger with little thought of contingencies.
I don't get the feeling Ms. Harrison got into the head's of the other characters, particularly the bad guys, but merely viewed them from Rachel's perspective and wrote them accordingly. I would like to have seen more complex, interesting characters rather than feeling as though they were all from Central Casting.
I had read several glowing reviews of this series and had higher hopes for the opening salvo. I kept hoping there would be an unexpected turn in the plot or someone would turn out to be not as expected. I was disappointed, however. I'm hoping the second book in the series is better but I don't think I'll be rushing to purchase it.
Book Review: Witch Wanted - Dead Only
Summary: 5 Stars
Dead Witch Walking (2004) is the first fantasy novel in the Hollows series. In the 1950s, Watson, Crick and Franklin solved the DNA puzzle in six months. After the Soviets grabbed the technology, the Defense Department funded military uses of bioengineering and civilian products soon followed. By the end of the sixties, a mutated virus strain escaped from the labs and attached itself to a bioengineered tomato crop.
A quarter of humanity died, but inderlanders were mostly immune. The witches, undead, trolls, pixies, and fairies were completely unaffected. Weres, living vamps and leprechauns got the flu. The elves, however, all died. Now that humanity had been pruned so vigorously, the inderlanders announced their presence. The Turn occurred worldwide.
In this novel, Rachael Morgan is a witch working as an Inderlander Security runner. Her record has not been too successful of late. She had taken in a Seeing Eye dog who matches the description of a wanted Were. Also, her tanglefoot spell has accidentally removed the hair from a bus driver and passengers in the first three rows. It is possible that someone is messing with her briefings and potions.
Tonight, Rachael is dressed in her funtime clothes for duty in the Hollows, but people in the street keep mistaking her for a hooker. Inside the bar, she carefully scans the clientele, looking for a tax evading leprechaun. Her backup, Jenks the pixie, tells her that the female bartender is the target, but Rachael disagrees. Yet Jenks is right and Rachael shackles the leprechaun with her charmed handcuffs.
Ivy, a living vampire and a fellow IS runner, is working in the same bar, looking for vampires who use a little too much glamour on underaged normals. They share a cab back to headquarters, with the taken vamps in the trunk. Rachael is ready to quit IS, death threats or not, and asks Ivy for leads on a cheap place to hang out her investigator shingle within the Hollows. Ivy counters with an offer to share the job and quarters. Even Jenks wants to share in the deal.
Both want a wish from the leprechaun. Rachael initially turns down their offers, but finally agrees. When she faces her boss the next morning, he gleefully tears up her contract; nothing like a little vote of confidence from your boss! But he changes his mind after Ivy buys out her contract.
Rachael almost backs out of the arrangement when she sees the property that Ivy has selected: a church, complete with steeple and bells. Of course, most of the grounds are still sanctified and any hostile magic directed at persons inside would be nullified. It also has plenty of room and a great kitchen. But still . . . a church?
In this story, Rachael hasn't heard the last of the IS, despite her boss's initial joy at her leaving. She really needs a big bust to pass on to IS to buy their cooperation. And she finds Ivy a wee bit intimidating when she is angry.
This story is like a humorous version of the Anita Blake novels. For example, the Federal Inderland Bureau (FIB) is the human equivalent of the IS. However, Rachael's sex life is downright stunted compared to Anita's. But the paranormal involvement is very similar.
Of course, Rachael survives the plots against her and is available for sequels. However, she still has problems getting bus rides and Ivy's friends are a little too much. Yet she is free of the IS and making her own living. She even has a friend in the neighborhood.
The term "runner" apparently comes from historical British slang -- i.e., Bow Street Runner -- for a police agent who executes judicial arrest warrants. The term "taken" seems to be used for the person taken into custody by a runner. A similar alternative term is seen in "attachments" issued by a juvenile court for the arrest of juveniles. All this probably resulted from the irregular nature of Inderland Security.
Highly recommended for Anita Blake fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of paranormal investigations, vampire relationships and sassy pixies.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Book Review: I think the BOOK is what's dead...
Summary: 2 Stars
I believe this is the first time I have ever posted an Amazon review for a book I couldn't finish. I usually think that's unfair. But, gosh, I TRIED to finish it -- many, many times. I thought the premise was great. I was thrilled that Charlaine Harris recommended it. The plot sounded cool. I think the author has talent. So? What's my problem?
First problem -- one of technique. Harrison has clearly learned the Big First Lesson of fantasy writing: Don't start your book by explaining your world. Let the world emerge through the story. Unfortunately, Harrison has so MUCH back story, and her plot depends so much ON the back story, that it doesn't emerge -- it gets released in chunks whenever the plot starts to move -- because oops! we won't get the next bit unless we know what came before. I like a lot of complex plot, but I need it to be woven into a story, not paintballed onto it. This is a difficult problem for fantasy writers, and I fault Harrison's editor for not dealing with it. One device that works well is Fforde's quoting from non-existent histories and autbiographies in the chapter headings in his Thursday Next series (The Eyre Affair, etc.). Or have a traveling storyteller. Or a newbie who needs lots of explanation.
Second problem -- character. I just could not connect with the protagonist. The book seemed to hint that she was a courageous and noble person, and that all her irritating personality problems were easily explained by her history. Only, of course, we're back to technical problem #1, and by the time we get some of her history, we just want to slap her. (OK, pronouns, I want to slap her. You probably don't.) She's not a person I want to sit down and chat with; she seems whiny, as opposed to outraged; and she has very devoted friends (I guess friends is the word), but no evidence of WHY they're devoted. (I think more comes out about that later in the book, perhaps.) For a person with the talents and street smarts she has supposedly developed, she seems amazingly clueless, and I couldn't figure out why she wasn't dead several times over before the story even started. I can be devoted to protagonists with personality problems, but Rachel has BORING personality problems.
The positive side is that I really WAS interested in the other characters -- lively, unusual, kinky, unexpectedly endearing. Jenks the pixie is especially neat. (However, Rachel's ignorance about basic facts of Pixie life is bizarre for someone of her supposed know-how.) I was left feeling that this would be a much stronger novel if it had been told by one of the other characters as "the first of many adventures our beloved but impaired friend Rachel got us into."
Third problem -- probably even more idiosyncratic than the first two. Ivy finds them this incredible CHURCH. With an amzing witch's GARDEN. To LIVE in. With a fabulous witch BOOK collection. And Rachel is so busy trying to get killed in premature attempt to solve a problem she doesn't understand yet that she hardly notices. Something Will Happen in the plot and Ivy will remind her there is a resource at the church for her to use, and Rachel will be blown away by having this resource and then revert to total cluelessness. This is supposed to be a smart woman -- a STREET smart woman. Which should mean that she's tops at wringing every last bit of information out of her environment. Harrison came up with a setting far more interesting than is typical in fantasy, and even managed to make the setting be almost another character -- and then, having committed this act of brilliance, pretty much shoves it out of the way until she needs another chunk of action.
I would definitely try reading another book by Harrison -- I think she has talent as a writier, and an amazing imagination. She can even make compelling characters. I think the scope of this novel was way over her head technically, and she needed some significant guidance in presenting her protagonist. I have read books I liked much more that were nowhere near as well-written, but had a much better integration of plot and character.
Book Review: Entertaining, with some major annoyances
Summary: 3 Stars
This was a pretty quick read that mostly kept my interest. It was readable throughout, but the story really picked up in the last hundred pages or so. To be honest, there's not much of a plot to speak of until the last hundred pages, but it kept my interest because we got to learn more about the world Rachel lives in.
While the story was entertaining enough, my main problem with this book has to be the characters. Especially the main character, Rachel Morgan. She's not the brightest bulb in the room and makes the same mistakes over and over again. She'd be dead a couple of times in the book if it weren't for sheer luck or somebody saving her. That's not my kind of heroine. While a little vulnerability is never a bad thing and makes the character more realistic, Rachel ALWAYS needs somebody to save her after she does something stupid. What's even more ridiculous, after almost dying and being saved by a human, another character tells her that whether she likes it or not she is already a leader of her group. I laughed out loud when I read that. If putting yourself in danger over and over again and relaying on other people to save you makes a good leader, then yes, Rachel Morgan would make an awesome leader.
Another thing that was annoying was how everyone treated Ivy (Rachel's vampire roommate) like crap. Rachel was the worst. We have a couple of chapters in the beginning of the book of her whining about how she's scared that Ivy will feed on her. If she's so worried about it, why is she living with Ivy in the first place? Then there's a human character later in the book who comes out of nowhere and starts picking fights with Ivy for no reason. What I really don't understand is why Ivy lets all this happen. She seems to be a lot more powerful than Rachel and the other characters. Unless she has ulterior motives for playing second fiddle to an incompetent dimwit like Rachel, I really don't get this character.
The main "villain" in this story is pretty dull and doesn't seem all that evil to begin with. He's supposed to be the most powerful person in the city but pretty much anyone can enter his private office without much trouble. You'd think the guy would have a better security system, because if Rachel can break in three times, then so can anybody! I'm guessing he's going to be a love interest later on in the books because all Rachel talks about when she sees him is how good looking he is and what a nice body he has. But she pretty much does that to every male character in the book. Even Jenks, her married-with-lots-of-children pixie friend, isn't safe from her lusting. Another annoying thing was when Rachel complained about not having much money left and wondering where all her savings went when a couple of chapters earlier she bought herself new leather boots for no reason! (In a vampire shop no less...I guess the only vampire she's scared of is Ivy, the person she just happens to be living with.)
Overall, I was mostly entertained while reading this novel and some of the concepts were interesting. But there's also lots of annoying things here. Especially the main character, whose motivations for doing the stupid stuff she does are pretty much a mystery to me, except that maybe that's the only way the author knows how to move a story along.
Will I read the other books in this series? Probably not. While this was a decent enough read, I don't really find myself caring what happens to any of these characters. This first novel was neither bad nor great. It was entertaining enough for me to finish it, but not really good enough for me to have much of a desire to read more. Maybe I'll pick up the second book in the series once I have nothing else to read.
Book Review: Not Enough Meat On Its Bones!
Summary: 3 Stars
Forty years before "Dead Witch Walking" begins, a quarter of mankind died from the mutated virus named T4 Angel. According to Kim Harrison's alternate world history, US and USSR Cold War zeal spurred Bigtime investment into bio-engineered weapons, as well as drugs, (even more so than in our actual world. Imagine that!!). This intensity of purpose "turned science inward instead of outward. We never made it to the moon." A lethal DNA chain spread from a lab and attached itself to a bio-engineered tomato. The product was a deadly fruit, indeed. The rest is history - as was a quarter of humanity. This is when homo sapiens discovered they were/are not the only human-like creatures, (sort of), on the planet. The Inderland species, witches, lycanthropes, the undead, (vampires), trolls, pixies, faeries, etc., were resistant to T4 Angel. And so there came a time, when the virus died-out, and it was discovered that the combined numbers of Inderland species on earth equaled, and occasionally surpassed, the total number of human beings. The "Turn" is the name for the moment when humans discovered they shared the planet with "others." Their reaction to the Turn, and events leading up to it, was to outlaw medical research. No more new meds or biotechnology. Imagine the stock markets!! The Washington lobbyists!!
So, to cut to the chase - The Federal Inderland Bureau, (FIB), a purely human institution, was created, to monitor Inderlander activities. A rival force made-up of out-of-work federal agents and Inderlander police was then formed, and called Inderland Security (IS). Their only common goal was to search and destroy any remaining bio labs and illegal substances.
Our protagonist, Rachel Morgan, a red-headed witch, is a top contract runner for the IS with an excellent employment record, until recently. Known for always bringing-in the bad guys, with or without the use of magic, she has been experiencing a run of bad luck lately. Tired of shabby treatment from her boss, (who she finds out has been sabotaging her), along with lousy assignments, she breaks her contract and quits the IS. Her friends Ivy, a living vampire, and Jenks, a prolific pixie, leave along with her in a show of solidarity. The three decide to team-up and freelance. The last runner who quit was, unfortunately, blown to bits. IS is what is known as a cradle to grave kind of company, and resignations are frowned upon - severely! Ivy pays off her IS contract, so she has nothing to worry about. Jenks was always a freelancer. Rachael, however, is blamed for being a negative influence on the two, and her boss, Denon, is determined to terminate her life in a quick and gory fashion. He never liked her anyway. Now Rachael is a "dead witch walking."
In between dodging assassination attempts, Rachel is determined to bring down one of the city's, (a very much altered Cincinnati), most powerful men, a drug kingpin who has been running Brimstone and biodrugs. She believes if she can bring in this crime boss, the IS might rescind the contract they have taken out on her life.
While I really enjoyed Ms. Harrison's alternate world, and her creative society building along with the interaction between various species of Inderlanders, there is really not much of a plot here. There's lots of structure, but little meat on the bones. I found the narrative to be choppy more often than not, although the pace is fast and there's lots of humor. I just couldn't find much to sink my teeth into. I think the author plans "Dead Witch Walking" to be the first book in a series. If so, it has definite possibilities and I would consider reading a second book, which hopefully will be more plot driven, and not as "cute" as this one.
JANA