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: So Good! More, More!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The book, the first of a series, is DEAD WITCH WALKING ... and despite the kinda cheesy title, which is a take from Clint Eastwood movies? Is beyond excellent, especially for those hungry for some femslash subtext. ** Minor Spoiler Warnings ** this review includes a few spoilers.Wonderful well built world, our modern day USA after a bioengineered virus wiped out a major part of normal humanity, revealing the supernatural beings living among us (they were immune) who stepped in to keep the world from totally breaking down into chaos.
Now the humans and the Inderlanders (no idea why they are called that) live in uneasy alliance and the world goes on as the normal humans and the supernaturals police themselves, each with their own agencies. Rachel Morgan is a witch working for Inderland Security, until the steady string of crap assignments drives her to strike out on her own as an independent. The only problem is, even though she was deliberately given the worst jobs to force her to quit, no one leaves the agency... and lives.
Rachel is taking her chances though, and she is not alone as her friend Ivy, a living vampire and one of the best agents the Inderland Security has buys out her own contract, beggering the previously wealthy vamp, to join up with Rachel for her own mysterious reasons. Well, some of the reasons aren't too mysterious as the interaction between the two show Ivy is more than just fond of our girl Rachel... *happy whimpers* Along with Rachel and Ivy comes Jenks, a pixie with an attitude and a family of his maaaaaany children to look out for. Together they just might make it, even against hordes of assassins trying to collect the price now on Rachel's head.
The plot is tight, fast paced, and breathlessly exciting. Magic, political corruption, mysterious dangerous men, demons, bio-drug running, and a race against time to get the goods to put Rachel in the clear and end the contract on her life before her life actually ends. The main cast is joined by Nick, a human with far too much knowledge about magic who is turning sweet on Rachel, which does save her from death by demon, but leaves her with a troubling demon mark meaning she owes one a favor...
Did I mention the tomatos? Trust me, you won't look at one the same way afterwards *^_^*
's So Good... I read it all in a gulp on a Friday night, and am now re-reading slow, going over the details lovingly *^_^*
I want the next book (due out Feb 2005) and I want it NOW!!!
Book Review: great cast of characters
Summary: 5 Stars
Last night, a book that once started was impossible to put down.
Since I lost sleep over it, you get to read a review. I don't read often enough to give regularly, so here's the short skinny: if Anita Blake was written by Dashiell Hammett, who it turned out was secretly alive and female, and just starting her career, this might be the book.
OK, so I've read a bit of Gentry and Blake, but it didn't really grab me. Those gals seem to live in a world that you might want to fetishize into rpg canon. There is a certain underlying vibe of fantasy immersion in those stories.
Rachel Morgan does not have a life you would want. Her world is not nice. Her prospects are rather dim. Rachel is under a threat of assassination by the time the first few chapters roll past. The contract on her life is put out by folks she used to work for.
The Good Guys.
Now she's an independant consultant. Y'see the Good Guys aren't really so good, just in charge of enforcing the rules. The Bad Guys are really, really bad. Black. Twisted. Slimy. So the Good Guys hunt the Bad Guys down because everyone has to play by some rules or there is just chaos, dontchaknow. Rachel is a low ranking white witch who used to help drag the Bad off the streets.
But Kim Harrison doesn't slow down much to give you all this, she tells the story and lets you take it in Zelazny style.
All that being said, there is nobility, humor, surprises, and more than a few neat characters in the journey. There are ugly moments and a villain that you can respect even as you hope he gets the 'smackdown'.
Important to me, there is a team of folks who decide to line up with Rachel. They know she's getting a bad deal and they think she's worth fighting for. As a reader I found the NPCs of this story very interesting and far from cliche. The more I appreciated them, the more I admired the author's willingness to let Rachel reveal slowly; even stubbornly.
Best of all, there are more tales from Kim about Rachel Morgan. There are lots of things we want to know more about. There is a world here that doesn't seem shallow or rushed in execution.
But don't take it to bed with you. Consider yourself warned.
There are additional titles (and yes, they're too cute and media savvy, but the stories are NOT). Let's hope that the followups are developed as well.
Book Review: A great read with some fabulous characters
Summary: 5 Stars
I actually would like to award this book four and a half stars - it's not quite up to five stars, for me, but then four is underselling it. Still, it's a really good book to while away a long afternoon.
Rachel Morgan is a white witch in a world where supernatural people mix with humans. Vampires, witches, werewolves, pixies, fairies... they are all part of the `modern' world in Cincinnati where Rachel lives. Her job in Inderland Security (Inderlander being the name for non-humans) is as a kind of police officer for the supernaturals but for some reason she's getting the worst possible jobs assigned to her. When she arrests a leprechaun she is offered a way out - the leprechaun wants her freedom and will, in return, grant three wishes. Rachel decides to take her up on this offer to gain freedom from Interland Security and a new life for herself.
On the way she has to give two of her three wishes to her companions of the moment - Jenks the pixie and Ivy the Alive Vampire. These two characters are excellent - Ivy is spooky with her vampiric nature, although as she's not yet dead she doesn't have to exist on blood; and Jenks is just brilliant as the annoying yet fun pixie with a huge family.
Ivy and Rachel find themselves living in a church and trying to settle down in some kind of domestic situation with all the difficulties of vampire and witch living together - and then Rachel realises that she's got a price on her head and is a Dead Witch Walking.
Rachel, Ivy and Jenks need to pull off a huge coup for Inderland Security to remove the death threat from Rachel so they start investigating an important local businessman who they believe is running drugs. Things get more and more complicated, they run into danger and hook up with new colleagues. But is everyone as they seem?
This book is obviously the first in a series - there are a lot of loose ends at the close of the book. They're not annoying loose ends, just hint at future explanations. There's a lot of mystery about Ivy - what did she use her wish for, for example - and about some of the other people that they meet in the course of their investigations. I certainly look forward to the next book in the series and hope that it will answer some of these questions, as well as setting more.
Book Review: With a little work, could be a very good series
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm not ordinarily a fan of witchcraft/vampire novels, but this one is a considerable exception. Picture an alternate version of the world, very much like our own -- except that bioengineering took the place of space flight as a matter of international political competition, and that a certain bug got loose from the labs in the form of a genetically modified tomato and killed off a substantial fraction of the human race. Only the witches, vampires, were-creatures, pixies, fairies, and other non-human among us (they've always been there) weren't affected at all, and now they make up half the population, more or less. Rachel Morgan, a Cincinnati cop (and earth witch) for the nonhuman part of the government, is on her agency's blacklist (we're never really told why) so she quits to set up her own detective ("runner") agency. Her boss is glad to see her go -- but his top runner, Ivy Tamwood, a very high-caste vamp, leaves to join Rachel, who thereupon finds a price on her head. You don't quit the agency if they don't want you to. To buy her freedom from assassination, Rachel decides to get the goods on Councilman Trent Kalamack, a suspected drug lord. But Trent, to whose handsomeness she is reluctantly drawn, is much more than that. And that's the plot, such as it is. Actually, I found the action here less interesting than the setting and the characters; Ivy's struggle to be a "good" vampire is fascinating, and Jenks, Rachel's pixie backup, is a lot of fun. The problem is, the first two-thirds of the book depicts Rachel, who has something of Stephanie Plum about her, being constantly frightened of absolutely everything and everyone (especially Ivy) while still insisting that she's a talented and skilled runner. I don't find this entirely believable. When she gets trapped in the form of a mink, the story becomes much more involving, and her fight with the demon is very well done. On the other hand, the author's sometimes jarring and even incorrect word-choices would have benefitted from the attention of a good copyeditor. (Hint: In this country, it's "railroad trestle," not "railroad trellis.") There's a sequel out now, but all the unresolved and unexplained bits and pieces pretty much guaranteed there would be.Book Review: A fast and fun paranormal mystery!
Summary: 4 Stars
The paranormal genre, whether it is romance, mystery, or horror, has seen an influx of new writers, which carries both positive and negative consequences. On one hand, the books and characters tend to be so similar that you have the impression of reading what is essentially the same book several times. However, there are a few writers who manage to break through the monotony, and Kim Harrison is one of them. With the Rachel Morgan series she combines the best characteristics from the Anita Blake books and the Stephanie Plum series (Janet Evanovich), but she still manages to keep an original and creative outlook on the genre.
In Harrison's world, the discovery of DNA led the human race to focus their efforts on more microbiological research, including genetically engineered food as well as biological weapons. Unfortunately, the humans wind up almost eradicating themselves when a lethal virus is transmitted via a tomato. The Inderlanders (vampires, pixies, weres, etc) take advantage of this and reveal themselves since they have no fear of being destroyed by the lower number of humans.
Morgan is a witch who worked for the I.S. where she brought in Inderlanders for different crimes. However, she gets fed up with her boss and always getting the `crap' assignments, so she quits. But, nobody quits from the IS, so she is not plagued by death threats.
The plot is a non-stop action with Morgan desperately trying to find a way to pay off the bounty on her head. Along the way, we are introduced to Ivy, a sexy female vampire, Jenks, a strong and funny pixie among others.
The characters and plot are pretty good. Morgan is a believable character, and each character has his/her own unique characteristics. I am giving this 4.5 stars for one reason. Harrison needed to explain the "magic" a little better. There were times when I was confused because I didn't understand the lingo, and I am still confused as to whether anybody who goes to college and gets a degree can be a witch. I think she could have been clearer here, and that would have improved the cohesiveness of the text. Excellent novel though, and I highly recommend it!