(shiny new) peekle book blog

See, this is how you do it. Dangerous situations, power creep, <spoilery spoilerness> — it should all come from what’s gone before, based on your characters, what they’ve done and how they’ve changed. I immensely enjoyed For a Few Demons More , so much so that instead of going to another of the books on my stack, I’m stopping by the downtown Borders on the way home to buy The Outlaw Demon Wails. (Yes, even though it has a pun that bad as the title.)

The book was thankfully free of the idiomatic errors and typos the last book had, although Kisten’s last name was given as “Phelps” in the bonus short.

I almost gave up on this book. I went out and bought the next Kim Harrison novel as a bribe, something to look forward to when I’d gotten through it. At first, this just moves around the same old tired ground as the last few novels. Oh, something weird is happening and only Super-Warden Mary Sue can possibly do anything about it! So she sets out with her coterie of insanely attractive male admirers, all of whom either actively desire her or carry a torch, to figure out what’s going on. In the course of doing so, she is repeatedly greviously injured. At one point I said “Well, the only thing that would make this worse is if X was the big bad,” where X is a person who for very good reasons couldn’t possibly be the bad, and four pages later found out that in fact, X was the big evil behind everything.

And then, somehow, in the last third, the gears caught. The end of the book actually worked. Sure, there was still rampant stupidity, but I actually found myself enjoying it. Some things were even surprising — there’s a long-overdue reveal, so shocking due to past reluctance on the author’s part that even when the storyline meandered right out of the book before examining any of the repercussions of said reveal I forgave it.

Still a bit annoyed by some things: I’ve lost track of the times Jo has almost — or completely! — died, and it happens, what, twice more in this book? This is hardly mitigated by the fact that she actually had to spend some time healing and resting to recover after the first one, because she is magically rescued from all other physical harm in the book. Yawn. This is even worse than in other series because if we know she’s going to be magically healed up, zero tension is generated. A different shocking event is completely forgotten after just a little bit of angst. The book doesn’t end so much as stop; much like one of the earlier ones, it’s obviously one book split in two because they can only be so long. And, god, the endless namedropping.

I find myself in the strange position, though, of wanting to read the next book, even after almost giving up on this one.

So far, these Kim Harrison books have been pretty good: a main character it’s easy to root for, a sly sense of humor, good writing that doesn’t drown in its idiosyncrasies. (Well, not much, anyhow. And this book could’ve used a good copyedit pass; too many times, an idiomatic phrase is mangled — “a mute point”, that kind of thing. Oh, and pixies need a new way to swear.) And it avoids Anita Blake Syndrome — the main character’s powers are, for the most part, exactly what they were when the series started, and there’s no more (or less, to be fair) sex in the books either.

That being said, the books do push some of the hot buttons I have about urban fantasy, and one most of all. It’s also the problem I’ve got with the Dresden Files.

Physical danger is not the only kind of danger. An endless litany of how injured the protagonist is is not going to make me like them more, nor is a first-person poor-poor-pitiful-me routine about how tired, hurt and angsty someone is. Both Rachel Morgan and Harry Dresden are much more fun when they are bubbly, snarky, wise-cracky and rude.

Also, in a complementary minor key, lots and lots of people shouting at each other is no fun.

Another enjoyable adventure. The series shows every sign of submitting to the same traps all urban fantasies tend to fall into, but is still quite readable. I have the terrible feeling I’m going to have to stop before I get to the latest book, though. Already started the next one because I’m impatient. Maybe, after that one, I’ll write more of a review and an explanation of my problems with urban fantasy. (Then again, maybe not.)

An intricate fantasy novel that sets up its plot in the first chapter, gives it a good winding and lets it go. What at first seems like it is to be a light fantasy ends up touching on a lot of subjects — love, freedom and the price of betrayal. A joy.