Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
Dec. 31st, 2007 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Atlanta would be a nice place to live, if it weren't for the magic ...
When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it rose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.
Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up these magical problems. But when Kate's guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta's magic circles.
The Masters of the Dead, necromancers who can control vampires, and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, blame each other for a series of bizarre killings - and the death of Kate's guardian may be part of the same mystery. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she's way out of her league - but she wouldn't have it any other way ...
My biggest complaint about this book is that I really wanted it to be twice as long as it was. Ilona Andrews packs a hell of a lot into the 258 pages she's got and she's come up with an intriguing concept of a future world where magic and technology exist side-by-side, colouring it with many ideas that I've never seen before (particularly vampires being little more than undead puppets). Told in a tight first person voice, Kate Daniels is a pretty believable character, who leads you through what's happening to and around her. Whilst I think that some of the story is too exposition heavy, I think that's more to do with the limited length available to Andrews and I certainly didn't feel that any of it was needless.
I have reservations - the hints at Kate having some potential uber-power could rapidly disintegrate into some ripe Mary-Suism, although I must stress that in this book Andrews never crosses the line. I also wasn't a big fan of Curran the Beast Lord, mainly because arrogant men have never been my thang. I'd have liked to be shown some of Kate's relationship with her guardian, Greg, rather than be told about him (although again - I suspect this is more to do with page constraint) and I'm not sure that the relationship between Crest and Kate is really allowed to develop enough to give an impact to what happens between them. I also think that the pacing gets too full on in the final quarter, when Andrews resorts to dropping in key information suddenly to move onto the next thing and some events happen off page that I'd have liked to have seen and I think that the villain suffers as a result, dropping any Machiavellian qualities that they had.
However I think that for all this, Andrews's skill as a writer to watch shines through - I particularly liked Saiman, whose quest to come up with the ultimate in attractive men was amusing and who sells his encyclopaedic knowledge as a service to anyone willing to pay and there's enough wit in the text to make you care about what happens to Kate. It's also refreshing to see a fantasy writer who has clearly thought through the world they've created (although I had a tiny, tiny nitpick with the Crusader in the final act who tries to use conventional weapons when 'tech' isn't dominant) and who is trying to weave together pre-existing fantasy tropes with elements that are (to me at least) wholly original. I'm keen to see whether and how Andrews develops her heroine, given the set-up that the reader is left with at the end of the book and I think this has the makings of a solid urban fantasy series for readers who like tough female characters.
The Verdict:
Flawed but enjoyable and it cracks along at an incredible pace. I definitely want to see what happens to Kate Daniels in future books.
Atlanta would be a nice place to live, if it weren't for the magic ...
When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it rose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.
Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up these magical problems. But when Kate's guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta's magic circles.
The Masters of the Dead, necromancers who can control vampires, and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, blame each other for a series of bizarre killings - and the death of Kate's guardian may be part of the same mystery. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she's way out of her league - but she wouldn't have it any other way ...
My biggest complaint about this book is that I really wanted it to be twice as long as it was. Ilona Andrews packs a hell of a lot into the 258 pages she's got and she's come up with an intriguing concept of a future world where magic and technology exist side-by-side, colouring it with many ideas that I've never seen before (particularly vampires being little more than undead puppets). Told in a tight first person voice, Kate Daniels is a pretty believable character, who leads you through what's happening to and around her. Whilst I think that some of the story is too exposition heavy, I think that's more to do with the limited length available to Andrews and I certainly didn't feel that any of it was needless.
I have reservations - the hints at Kate having some potential uber-power could rapidly disintegrate into some ripe Mary-Suism, although I must stress that in this book Andrews never crosses the line. I also wasn't a big fan of Curran the Beast Lord, mainly because arrogant men have never been my thang. I'd have liked to be shown some of Kate's relationship with her guardian, Greg, rather than be told about him (although again - I suspect this is more to do with page constraint) and I'm not sure that the relationship between Crest and Kate is really allowed to develop enough to give an impact to what happens between them. I also think that the pacing gets too full on in the final quarter, when Andrews resorts to dropping in key information suddenly to move onto the next thing and some events happen off page that I'd have liked to have seen and I think that the villain suffers as a result, dropping any Machiavellian qualities that they had.
However I think that for all this, Andrews's skill as a writer to watch shines through - I particularly liked Saiman, whose quest to come up with the ultimate in attractive men was amusing and who sells his encyclopaedic knowledge as a service to anyone willing to pay and there's enough wit in the text to make you care about what happens to Kate. It's also refreshing to see a fantasy writer who has clearly thought through the world they've created (although I had a tiny, tiny nitpick with the Crusader in the final act who tries to use conventional weapons when 'tech' isn't dominant) and who is trying to weave together pre-existing fantasy tropes with elements that are (to me at least) wholly original. I'm keen to see whether and how Andrews develops her heroine, given the set-up that the reader is left with at the end of the book and I think this has the makings of a solid urban fantasy series for readers who like tough female characters.
The Verdict:
Flawed but enjoyable and it cracks along at an incredible pace. I definitely want to see what happens to Kate Daniels in future books.
