Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, Book 1)
by Patricia Briggs
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.09 You Save: $3.90 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, Book 1)
Book Review: A very nice read. Patricia Briggs does her homework, and it shows.
Summary: 5 Stars
_Moon Called_ by Patricia Briggs is a contemporary fantasy, set mostly in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state. The main character is Mercy Thompson, who is a walker that can shift shape into a coyote and back. She is approached by a young drifter (who is also a werewolf) looking for a job at her auto shop. The drifter is soon killed by agents unknown, Mercy's next door neighbor Adam (who is the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, and a military veteran with special ops experience) has been beaten senseless, Adam's daughter has been kidnapped, and Mercy has to get Adam to a werewolf in Montana who is likely the only wolf in North America strong enough to control Adam while he is recovering from his wounds.
Along the way we meet Mercy's friends, which include a car-repairing gremlin (who probably has a much more famous past than he is willing to admit to), a laid-back vampire who drives an old VW bus painted like the Mystery Machine in Scooby-Doo, and an undercover cop who can't figure out why Mercy keeps seeing through his disguises.
Briggs did an excellent job integrating supernatural lore into modern American history. Supernatural creatures native to North America (like walkers) are rather rare, as most native supernaturals were driven extinct by European supernaturals and fae when North America was first settled by the Europeans. So in addition to the usual dislike that werewolves & vampires have for each other, both of them dislike walkers. There's also a Russian witch thrown into the mix, along with the aforementioned gremlin.
What was most enjoyable about this book, besides the well-done characters, was Briggs's eye for detail. LK Hamilton used to have this eye for detail, but has sadly lost it. It is good to see other authors still understand the importance of detail. Small things, like the trusworthiness of different makes of cars, which gun and which caliber is used and why, the difference in biology of timber wolves and werewolves, and the differences between each of the Tri-Cities, make this a book that feels like a real-life story, instead of some books that feel like someone just putting down whatever they think will sell. Briggs clearly enjoys writing and takes great pride in it, and it shows.
As a couple of side notes: I first read Briggs in college when her book _Masques_ was published, along with another one (whose name I cannot remember), and then I didn't see anything by her for quite a while. It is good to see her writing again. Also, it is nice to see a contemporary fantasy set in the Tri-Cities. Most contemporary fantasy seems to be set in very large urban areas (L.A., St. Louis, Chicago, etc.) and it's nice to see an author set the story in an area that is not as well-known.
Book Review: Moon Called: If you don't find trouble, trouble will find you.
Summary: 4 Stars
Story:
Mercy Thompson is not your normal auto mechanic. One could say that being a auto mechanic is the most normal thing about her. Mercy is one of the Fae known as a skin walker. Her ability lets her transform into a coyote more or less instantly and gives her enhanced senses as well as extra strength. Unfortunately for Mercy she knows of no one else that has this ability so she lives as one of the Fae that do not reveal their existence to the rest of the world. She also happens to be "protected" by the leader, Adam, of the local wolf pack who more or less lets her live as she wants. One day Mercy is working in her shop dealing with a stubborn car and a mountain of paper work that won't file itself, (casualty of her assistant leaving for a full ride scholarship) when a young man walks in looking for work. Mercy can tell that something is off about the young man who only goes by the name Mac but she has a soft spot for those who are down and out due to events beyond their control so she offers him a job. Things go relatively smoothly for a few days until it becomes apparent that Mac is a werewolf without a pack. Seeking to prevent a tragedy due to the rigid rules the werewolf's live by Mercy introduces Mac to Adam the leader of the local werewolf pack who agrees to take care of him. Unfortunately Mac was an accident that someone doesn't want solved and Mercy is soon in a race to protect her friends and find out why someone is trying to start a war among the werewolf packs.
--------
This is a pretty good start to a series. The main character is interesting and doesn't come across as whiny or annoying. The background to the story is also interesting and since this is a series hopefully the whys will be answered as more books come out. I can say that the ending to this book was definitely interesting and hey a writer who actually remembered that the bad guy doesn't always have to be out to take over the world or something. So I'll have to say that this series starting off is better than the lighter stuff that is in this genre. Then again so was the Dead in Dixie series, the Rachel Morgan series, the Undead and series, etc... My point is these series start off great, then good, then hopefully the next book will be good, then I give up I need a Idiot's guide to make sense of it all. My point is that unless each book stands by itself, even if it is a series then they run out of steam. Hopefully the next two are just as good and I'll have a series that is worth keeping up with. I would recommend this to those who like paranormal action adventures, those who like the above series, and those who like paranormal romances.
m.a.c
Book Review: Kick BUTT heroine!
Summary: 5 Stars
Mercedes Thompson is my favorite Heroine of all times. She is just the right amount of ballsy and even though sometimes she makes stupid mistakes they are some what believable.
Mercy is a shape-shifter what they call a Walker in a world were witches, fae, vampires are known creatures. She can turn into a coyote. Her neighbor is the alpha of the local werewolves pack and has claimed her as a mate among the pack for her protection. So that the wolf guys will not harm her. They aren't foolish enough to upset their alpha, the drop dead sexy Adam Hauptman. Adam and Mercy have this love-annoy relationship. He threatens to eat her cat, while she annoys him to no end by keeping an old and dilapidated VW Rabbit in her back yard in his house's view.
Mercy meets a young wolf at her car shop and the adventures starts from there. Someone is attacking humans and turning them into werewolves. Mercy wants to find out who, exactly is doing this.
I loved the way Mercy's long-term relationship with werewolves unfold. I was so enthralled with this book from pretty much the first sentence. "I didn't realize he was a werewolf at first." Maybe it was just me but I could not put this book down.
Mercy and Adam have a complex relationship more than neighbors, but no where near the mates that Adam claimed her as. Adam has a hilarious, punk rockish but lovable daughter, Jesse, that Mercy just adores, as do I as well. And when ex-lover Samuel, son of Bran, enters the picture after Mercy has to make an unexpected and un-wanted return home to Montana, you will think Adam and Mercy's complex relationship is a walk in the park.
Moon Called is a great book. I give kudos to Briggs for the world she created while not getting caught up in petty descriptions and background filler information. Briggs finds an entertaining way to tell us all we need to know as we need to know it.
The characters are very well written and believable. And boy there are a lot of characters to know. Luckily they are easy to remember. The tri-city, where Mercy resides, wolf pack are characters who's importance that ranger from major to minor but you will remember every single one. And Bran's Montana pack (Bran is the Alpha of the entire North American wolves) will introduce themselves as they show what relevance they have to Mercy's past.
All in all I have nothing but great things to say about the opening book for the series and you won't regret reading this book. I love the huge Native American culture that is infused in this book and the magical beings that this world has, both openly and hidden in among the public.
Book Review: Great world-building, good characters but disappointing plot
Summary: 3 Stars
First, let me confess that it was the cover art by Daniel Dos Santos rather than the book's description that was the deciding factor in my buying Patricia Briggs' Moon Called. After reading the book, I'd have to divide my opinion into three categories. The best thing about Moon Called is the world-building. While it is obvious that Briggs was heavily influenced by White Wolf's World of Darkness, she has done an excellent job of making her own distinct world for her story to take place in, doing very interesting things with the various supernatural communities that exist in it. Her vampires, werewolves, fae and other denizens all have their own unique little twists in their natures, their social structures and even their politics that set her world a quantum level above the ones usually found in the dark fantasy genre, so I give her very high marks in this regard.
The character-building is almost as good. Mercy Thompson is engaging as a protagonist; there's just something about a smart, strong-minded shifter girl who's also a top-notch mechanic that just naturally appealing. Nearly all of the characters in Moon Called come across as flesh and blood while remaining a different flesh from our own. That said, though, one does get the feeling that you've seen them before in any number of well-written dark fantasy novels. It's a tough thing to accomplish, given how well-traveled the DF road is, and Briggs does do a good job of it -- you never get bored by them. But at the same time, you're rarely surprised by what they do because they are so familiar.
My more serious problem with Moon Called is the plot. Within the DF genre, Moon Called falls into the mystery-novel subgroup. Without giving anything away, the heart of the plot is this: one character gets killed, another is attacked, and yet another is kidnapped, and Mercy must find out by whom and why. My problem is that, in my opinion, Briggs uses what I consider a mystery plot cheat - concealing the identity of the perpetrators by using minor characters whom you almost never see until the end, and concealing their motives for why they did what they did by making the reasons so convoluted that not only could you not see them coming, when they are revealed you just don't believe them. In this regard, I found myself more than a little disappointed.
Overall, I found Moon Called a better-than-average dark fantasy/mystery novel, and if you like the genre it's worth reading. I may try reading the next novel in the series, but my hope is that Briggs will do a better job with the plot.
Book Review: Hmm...Grreat potential, but shaky execution
Summary: 4 Stars
I DID NOT DRAW THE COVER. A much-repeated phrase to my friends. This book is NOT erotica, although it does have a romance as a second/third subplot.
I've read this twice, the first after having it thrown at me by Amazon's Recommended for You (I've found many wonderful books with it) and the second time as a refresher before reading the next in the series, Blood Bound. The first time I read it, I couldn't put it down, but the glaring comma and word-order errors made for an almost-every-page clunky read. Entirely too many commas and misplaced adverbs, especially "only". Briggs also has oddly formal dialogue at times, going for a style of "it is cold outside" rather than the more plausible "it's cold". Also in the first read, I didn't figure out who-done-it or why. At the time, I thought it was because, as I usually do, I had paid more attention to what is happening than to the why behind it.
On the recent second read, I still couldn't put it down, but I found the grammar errors much more annoying and more prevelant than I'd first thought. The foggy who-done-it & why also turned out to be because THERE ARE NO CLUES. We do not see the development of the characters enough to be able to figure out for ourselves the explanation that is given at the end of the novel. We see very little of the involved characters--only a mention of the mastermind (and no, that isn't a spoiler; lots of other characters are also only given a single mention), and none of the people that are set up as red herrings. I don't know about anyone else, but I like a book where I can figure out at least major parts of the main plot: this didn't even come off as a twist, if indeed that was what it was meant to be, for a twist requires suspicion of the real culprit that is subsequently dismissed not because of a lack of seeing the culprit (as is the case here) but because of a lack of further increased suspicion. That deficiency could have been corrected had the book been longer/developed much further, into a fuller novel instead of simply a long novella.
Anyhow, see the review "everything LKH's books should be but aren't" (should be the one right below this one); I agree wholeheartedly with it. The humor--and the potential that I am hoping will be fleshed out in Blood Bound--was one of the saving points of the book. In all, a good beginning for a promising new series.
P.S., not that anyone much cares, but I may get around to writing a followup review on Blood Bound about the extent to which that potential was fulfilled.