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: I'd like you to meet Rachel Morgan
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to say that this book wasn't what I expected....at all. Which in many cases could be a bad thing, but with regards to "Dead Witch Walking" it is a good thing. This book is the first in Rachel Morgan saga. Oh by the way, Rachel is a witch, but a good witch. Not as good as Glenda from the Wizard of Oz, but good nevertheless. I have heard from others as well as the description on the back of this book that Rachel Morgan is a good mixture of Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake. I haven't read any of the Stephanie Plums novels, yet my mother and girlfriend have. From their descriptions of Stephanie Plum, I don't see any parallels. As for Anita Blake I haven't read anything about the character, nor do I know someone who has, so I can't comment.
As for the plot it is simple and complex, simple where the plot is pretty straight forward and complex where the reader will have to adapt to all new terminology and history in order to understand this novel. I would say I experienced the same thing when I started reading Glen Cook's saga of "The Black Company".
The story takes place in the near future and due to "tainted" tomatoes half of the human race was wiped out (I am paraphrasing a bit). Once this pseudo-genocide happened, it was revealed that Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, Pixies and etc. lived among the human race for generations. The event was known as "The Turn" (see what I mean about terminology?) and now humans and "interlanders" (terminology) are now living side by side in society. Rachel is a runner (bounty hunter) and wants out of agency that she is working for. She steps on the wrong toes and ends up with a bounty on her head. There is a lot more to it, but again I am not going to re-tell the entire story, besides I am sure you would like the book itself much more than my rendition of it.
As I formerly noted, this book wasn't what I expected and I will explain why. I was under the assumption that Rachel Morgan was going to be bounty hunting in this book, since she is a bounty hunter. However, she spends the majority of the book avoiding a price on her head, hence the title "Dead Witch Walking". This didn't take anything away from the quality of the story or Kim Harrison's writing, it just took me for a loop.
Rachel Morgan is a very likeable character as is her partner/roommate Ivy Tamwood, who by the way is a living vampire and her sidekick Jenks who is an urbane pixy. I will not give anything away from the story, but I will say I was happy this book wasn't saturated with unneeded romance and/or sex. Don't get me wrong the former and latter are great, but sometimes not required or seemed oddly placed in many novels. This isn't the case in "Dead Witch Walking".
I liked this book so much that I have already purchased the second and third book in the series. I am eager to see what happens next to Ms. Morgan.
Book Review: A blatant rip-off
Summary: 1 Stars
This book isn't just reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton, it completely and utterly rips her off, not to mention a few other authors along the way (Hamilton gets the honor twice as both Anita Blake and Princess Merry and their friends get copied). The author thanks her editor for her suggestions - she ought to be firing her for not pointing out that this book has been written at least once before by better authors.You've heard the story before. Tough, sexy, not-quite-human woman with overly curly hair working for quasi-government agency to bring in other rogue non-humans engaging in illegal behavior quits job to go solo, hooks up with sexy vamp and other various non-humans and gets into a lot of trouble. The plot twists and heroine's planning skills are both seriously flawed and make any assertion that this woman is some kind of wondergirl absolutely ridiculous.
I assume in some sort of attempt to sex up this completely asexual and antiseptic book, the author threw in a ludicrous lesbian vamp/witch subplot; the subplot itself isn't the problem, it's that the author neither commits to nor gets rid of it. It hangs over the story like a bad smell, surfacing when some kind of tension needs to be manufactured. Getting a vampire upset, wearing an item of their clothing, talking about their family with them or following them into another room are all vamp foreplay according to the book of vampire dating dos and don'ts in this story. In one fell swoop, the author manages to turn both Ivy and Rachel into slaves to their hormones and non-human reactions and then almost instantly has Rachel falling into fits of disgust at the thought of maybe having sex with another woman. It's insulting to the reader, to anyone in a same-sex relationship and to the characters that the author should have cared more about.
With so much of the story and characterizations appearing to have been lifted from other places, it's almost impossible to critique the actual writing skills of the author. The book is what it would have to be, given the number of material sources: choppy, schizophrenic, confusing, frustrating and ultimately, because I've read better from the original authors, boring.
The last few chapters leave more loose ends and improbable but convenient plot devices than I've ever seen in a book before. Who or what are Nick, Keasley and Kalamack? What's the deal with Ivy and why did she lie to Rachel (and how did Nick know?)? What happened with the demon mark - was it paid or not, how did Nick manage to deal with the demon on Rachel's behalf and why would Kalamack think Rachel sent one to him?
In the hands of a more competent and original author, I'd stick around for what is an obviously planned book 2 to find out, but in this case, I found that I just didn't care about the answers. I have a feeling if I re-read a few of my Hamilton books, the answers are already in there anyway.
Book Review: A Witchin' Good Time
Summary: 4 Stars
I picked up this book for one reason and one reason only, the cover.
As of summer 2004, this is by far and away my favorite novel of the year. A truly fun book. I finished the book in something like four days, and I am a very slow reader. I would stay up until my eyes hurt reading.
Kim Harrison is simple yet so, so clever with this book. I do not like following a character, but she hooked me with this one as there is no doubt that this will be a series.
At its base, this a standard police/detective story: cop leaves the force to go solo as a bounty hunter, the force resents it and makes life difficult. The politicians are dirty and the ex-cop attempts to bring down the dirty politicians to clear her name.
But Harrison waves her magic wand over this story and really makes it more interesting than the stock version and more fun. The landscape is a post apocalyptic one, not from nuclear war, but from genetic engineering gone horribly awry. The swath of death leaves little doubt that there have been other life forms that have always walked amongst us in anonymity. Vampires, witches, pixies, etc., every being and beast from our familiar fairy tales and horror movies, unaffected by the deadly virus. Welcome to future Cincinnati!
Our ex-cop hero, Rachel, is a witch who leaves the force to go solo. But you can't just leave without buying off your contract, or there's a hit out on your life. Rachel takes her trusty backup, Jenks who is a pixie with her. An earlier partner, Ivy who is a living vampire (as opposed to undead) signs up too for the private life.
That's all you need to know without giving anything else away.
The publishers did no justice to this book. Reading the cover one would think that this is a cross between an action thriller and a vampire horror novel, "In the Hollows the vampires come out to play...to prowl, to party, to feed. Vampires rule the darkness." Enough. The book is not a horror novel. Its not even science fiction or fantasy, though I would say that it is fantastic. Rachel is a witch and her friend is a vampire. Ninety percent of the story is about Rachel. Its not a dark and dangerous world. I laughed out loud many times. It's a fun and exciting world of running from the law and chasing bad guys.
End result. BUY THIS BOOK. It was so much fun. Harrison left a lot of strings untied at the end to parlay into future novels. I could care less about all of them except one. Who released the demon?
For more details, go to www.aj.huff.org. Thanks.
Book Review: Truly excellent first book in a good series.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first of a very good alternate reality series. Humans have killed them selves off because a genetically altered tomato hosted a military virus. The inderlanders (witches, weres, vampires, leprechauns, ...) realize that they are as numerous as humans and so come out of the closet and demand equality. Rachel is a runner (sort of like a detective) for the IS (inderlander security) which is a national police force dealing with the inderlanders while the FIB (Federal Inderlander Burro) is an all human force that deals primarily with humans. Rachel is unhappy because she has been getting unexciting garbage runs. She is impulsive and something of an adrenalin junkie as well. While she has done some outstanding work she has some recent screw ups and her boss wants to get rid of her. She tags a leprechaun for tax evasion and gets offered 3 wishes. Ivy, a living vampire, (one who is born or turned by an undead vampire) an ex partner and star runner is with her along with a pixy (Jenks) her backup. They take the wishes and split them up. The IS has a nasty habit of making really unpleasant things happen to runners who break their contracts but Rachel is rather caviler about the whole thing. Her boss is happy to see her go until Ivy buys her way out of her contract and quits too. Then he tres to have Rachel killed. She and Jenks startup a private runner business with Ivy operating out of a rented church (they all wind up living there)--well he and his wife and kids live in the garden. That's when things get really interesting (as may you live in interesting times curse interesting). She breaks into the IS records to find out about Trent Kamalack a prominent business man and town councilor who is dealing in Brimstone (an illegal street drug) and outlawed bio engineered drugs (biodrugs). She figures that helping the FIB
get him will help get the IS off of her case so she breaks into his office after transforming herself into a mink (anyone good enough to stir transformation spells is too smart to use them) and is caught. After 3 days he puts her in the illegal rat fights. There she meets Nick who has been transformed into a rat (he has sticky fingers and borrows a book from a vampire). They help each other escape and subsequently become increasingly entangled with Trent, a daemon named Al and a FIB captan. The plot is nice and convoluted with some good humor. One reason she is initially in trouble is she tagged a seeing eye dog as a were wolf. The goth vampires are a hoot as well. Good character development and nice convulted plot. Overall excellent.
Book Review: It was alright. 3 1/2 stars, really.
Summary: 3 Stars
This was an alright book. It has a great mix of characters, all with their own personalities different from each other. The plot was interesting enough to keep you wanting to read more. There were only a few things i found annoying, but those few things *seriously* annoyed me. Firstly, this book is written in the first person perspective - which i usually prefer, btw - with the witch Rachel Morgan as our main character. She annoyed me to no end - which, incidentally, makes it a bit hard to enjoy the book. She was self-centered throughout the entire book, and when the author tried to make her sound as if she was worried about another person, she would do it by having Rachel blame herself for everything. Also, Rachel repeatedly thinks the same things over and over (simply worded a bit differently). For example, when Rachel leaves the I.S. she thinks they won't come after her because they wanted her gone anyway. She thinks this same thing many times before finding out it isn't true. After awhile it gets annoying having her tell you the same thing over and over. Also we are constantly reminded of how much the vampire (and her roommate) Ivy "scares the crap out of her", as if we forgot she had said it 6 pages back as well. I like Ivy's character, and i didn't like how Rachel was constantly hurting her feelings by not trusting her, repeatedly. The one time Ivy does do something to give Rachel a reason to be afraid, i swear Rachel never lets us forget it for a second afterwards. I love books with pixies, vampires, werewolves and the like, so i gave this book a try. Though i definitely prefer Moon Called (Mercy Thompson Series, Book 1) over Dead Witch Walking, I don't regret reading this book.
ANYWAYS, besides the annoyance that was Rachel, I liked most all the other characters. The pixie, Jenks, is the most hilarious character in the book, and gives the book a fun feel to go along nicely with the non-stop action.
Dead Witch Walking was interesting enough, though, that I still want to read the next one, The Good, the Bad, and the Undead (Rachel Morgan, Book 2) . Rachel Morgan isn't my kind of character, but everyone else is so i suppose it makes up for it a bit. I'd suggest checking this out from the library if you can, before buying it. If you can't get it from a library, then, well, it is a cheaply priced book for all its 400 pages.