Waiting for Fairies

I apologize excessively for the delay in getting this review together. I’ve had a busy week at work; but not only that. I needed more than a few days to process this book, to roll it over in my mind like hard toffee and to, well, grieve.

Warning: This review may contain spoilers for books 1-4, though I will be marking spoilers for book 5. Please note that comments may also include spoilers and I cannot be responsible for the etiquette, or lack thereof, of my readers.

For A Few Demons More (further known here as FFDM) is, by no small measure, Ms. Harrison’s best novel yet. Of course, each subsequent work since Dead Witch Walking has improved. FFDM is the fifth book in the series that, while without an official title, has come to be called “The Hollows Series” or “The Rachel Morgan series”.

A History Of The Hollows

The Hollows-verse, as it has come to be called, resembles our own world very closely except for a few fine points. First, the ‘space race’ never existed. Both scientific research and money were instead devoted to genetic research. By the mid-1960’s, science had created cures for genetic diseases that we still haven’t in our own world. In 1966, a world-wide disaster called the Turn began.

A biological weapon escaped from a laboratory somewhere in the world and latched onto a weak spot in the DNA of a genetically engineered tomato. Before the slip was caught, the tomatoes had been shipped throughout the world and hundreds of thousands of humans perished. Eventually, people came to realize that certain kinds of people were getting nothing more than a mild case of flu, if any symptoms at all. Human curiosity and a charismatic Inderlander* finally outlined the truth.

Most of those ‘fairy tales’ we’d been told as children? They were real. Species that were completely unaffected by the virus: witches, pixies, fairies, and the undead. The weres, living vampires, and leprechauns developed a mild case of the flu. The elves, having interbred with humans a little too closely to bolster their sagging numbers, disappeared. Oops. I guess that plan backfired, huh?

Since a large number of humans perished, it was the Inderlanders (*The term for non-human species.) that held the world together while it was in the midst of it’s death throes. When the dust settled, the numbers were even. Rather than draw battle lines against creatures that could obliterate the rest of the population, humans instead took their retribution out on geneticists and other scientists. It was a Scientific Inquisition.

As such, genetic research is now outlawed and punishable by death. Subsequently, tomatoes are also shunned by humans and tomato-based products can only be obtained commercially through specialty stores. The only product to survive the purge was Cincinnati-style chili. I can understand that. It’s damn good, after all. I’d risk death to eat it, too.

Where Is The Hollows?

The Hollows is a slang term for an area located across the Ohio River from the city of Cincinnati. When the Turn ended, most humans flocked to the inner cities for a sense of safety. Naturally, most Inderlanders then moved to the suburbs and countryside, since real estate there became cheap in a big hurry. The Hollows is Cincinnati’s main Inderlander suburb. It’s also where our heroine, Rachel, resides.

The Main Players

Rachel Morgan:

• Species: Witch
• Born: 1981
• Treated for an unnamed genetic disease as a child at a summer camp for sick children. This fact is kept a secret, as genetic research is illegal; and anyone having been subject to genetic medicine is either killed or shipped off to the arctic.
• Resigned from the IS in book 1 and was one of the only people to have survived the death threat put out on her life for not buying off her contract.

Ivy Tamwood:

• Species: Living Vampire and only remaining (living) heir to the Tamwood family.
• Born: 1979
• Subjected to a brutalization of her sense of love and self-worth as a teenager by family patriarch, and undead vamp, Piscary; when we first meet Ivy she is in the midst of a 3 year blood abstinence.
• Quit the IS with Rachel and used most of her early inheritance to pay off her contract.
• Resides with Rachel in a church in the Hollows, from which they operate their independent runner business: Vampiric Charms.

Jenks:

• Species: Pixie
• Born: unknown
• Third member of Vampiric Charms
• He, his wife Matalina, and their 30-odd children all live in Rachel’s garden behind the church.
• Coming to the end of a pixie’s typical 20 year life span.

Kisten Felps:

• Species: Living Vamp
• Born: 1980
• Ivy’s childhood companion (and once-upon a time, her lover as well).
• Member of Piscary’s camarilla.
• Manager of Pizza Piscary’s, a popular Inderland restaurant that serves pizza with real tomato-based sauce.

Trent Kalamack:

• Species: Elf
• Born: 1979
• Councilman of Cincinnati & popular philanthropist.
• Runs several successful legitimate businesses, as well as an illegal Brimstone ring, and an even more illegal network of genetic laboratories.
• Has a goal of getting Rachel to work for him and has been manipulating her toward that end since the beginning.
• Scheduled to marry Ellasbeth, another elf, during FFDM— not for love, but for political and genetic reasons.

Ceridwen Dulciate (Ceri):

• Species: Elf
• Born: Pre-Turn, over 1,000 year ago. Exact date unknown.
• Rescued by Rachel from over 1,000 years of being a demon’s familiar.
• Extremely well-versed in demon magic and able to twist demon curses, although she doesn’t have the correct enzymes to invoke them.
• Currently living across the street from Rachel, with Mr. Keasley.

Mr. Keasley:

• Species: witch
• Born: unknown
• Rachel’s mysterious neighbor from across the street.
• Took in Ceri when she was rescued.
• Suspicous of authority figures, and as such, keeps medical equipment in his home.

About FFDM

(Here be spoilers. Beware.)

Continue reading “Review: Kim Harrison For A Few Demons More”

This is a book review for The Scent of Shadows by Vicki Pettersson.

The Scent of Shadows is The First Sign of the Zodiac. So it’s proclaimed on the cover of this newly released paperback. Yet this description only barely begins to hint at the depth of this tome of ‘dark fantasy’- categorized so by the author herself. The stage is set in Las Vegas, a city built on paradox, or so it seems. Not only is there the contrast of neon glowing excess to the stark barrenness of desert; but there is also the intertwined but parallel worlds of human and paranormal.

Joanna Archer should by all rights be dead. Attacked, raped, and left for dead in the desert when she was 16 years old, she’s grown to become a strong, yet brittle woman. A reluctant heiress by day and a photographer by night, she spends her time searching the streets of her beloved hometown of Las Vegas. Whether she’s searching for her attacker, who was never found, or for her own lost innocence, it’s hard to say at first.

Recruited by a homeless vagrant who is far more than he seems, Joanna is initiated into a world of paranormal ‘superheroes’. They are crusaders: living in this world but not truly of it. The group consists of the human embodiment of the twelve Zodiac signs. They have been tasked with the burden of both fighting off and protecting the world from the Shadow Signs, their polar opposites and a source of great evil.

Despite (or maybe because of) spending the first half of the book almost thoroughly confused, I was enraptured by this world. In fact, I finished it in just over a day and that was with a break of an entire evening. Why did I take a break from reading if the story captured me so? Simply because I didn’t want it to end so soon.

Every page of this novel drew me deeper. I’ve never been to Las Vegas, so even the normal sights and sounds of that city were new to me. You can tell that not only has the author spent a vast amount of time there, but she loves it as well. That, above all, is what shines through the pages. And there’s more.

Much more.

It’s taken me a couple of hours at least to being to process the underlying themes involved in this book. I’ve become accustomed to not having to think too hard when I read. Perhaps that’s a fault of my own, but Ms. Pettersson has certainly forced me to begin to do so again. Yes, there are all the action elements which make a good paranormal story: heightened speed and strength, unique abilities, flashy weapons, ‘magic’ storms, and portals to another world.

What makes this book so unique, I think, is the thought behind it. Without any paranormal elements at all, this is an intriguing read. Here we have a woman who was brutalized as a child, carrying all of the shame, frustration, rage, and determination to no longer be a victim that you would expect. She refuses to be seen as soft or too womanly, since those are traits she associates with weakness. Ironically enough, these are the same traits her beloved sister portrays. Seemingly abandoned by her mother, and neglected by her father, she’s rebuilt her world on a foundation of martial arts and a need for vengeance.

Further, this book seems to ask one question: What happens to a person when you take every identifying characteristic away? Can they survive as a whole, happy person? As said in the book, “And what a strange world it was when a woman had to lose herself in order to find herself.”

The mythology is a bit unclear, which is why I spent the first half of the book scratching my head and hoping for another scrap of information. However, I can also appreciate the depth of the history involved, and why the author chose not to provide a long dissertation on the back story. If you can stand the suspense and a little bit of confusion, you’ll enjoy being teased as the story unfolds. By the time you come to the action movie-worthy conclusion, you’ll know where everyone stands and be rooting for Joanna to kick some Shadowy ass.

In the interest of disclosure: This book was recommended to me (and a lot of other people) by Kim Harrison, the author of the upcoming For A Few Demons More via her Yahoo Group. This review is being posted in response to the Scent of Shadows contest hosted by Sara Howe. The second book in the series, The Taste of Night, is due out in April. Personally, I can’t wait.

[xrr rating=4/5]