Everything the perfect read needs- action, edventure, magic, and a sprinkle of romance
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This entire series by Kim Harrison is mind-blowing. We are thrown into a world of humanity that has greatly suffered from a virus spread through the average tomato. Much of humanity dies, only those know as Inderlanders survive, the ones that have tried to stay hidden and out of the human eye. Humans must accept that elves, witches, warlocks, and much more of the old, thought to be fairytales are in fact true.
Rachel, along with her partner Ivy and Jenks, must break free of their IS contracts, start their own buisness, and just try to survive day to day life, without bitting one another, or placing spells on one another. They must fight those whose only goal in life is to get richer, like Trent, and those that want to see them fail.
The characters are greatly developed, and have actual depth. The plot is easy to understand and in the end, everything is wrapepd up, just in time for "Every Which Way But Dead", "The Good, The Bad, and The Undead","A Fistful of Charms", and "For a Few Demons More".
Though the end of the series appears to wrap itself up, we can only hope that Kim will take pen to paper again, and continue writing this series, through a book 6.
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Derivative and disappointing
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I borrowed this series from the library because it was touted as being similar to Jim Butcher's and Laurell K. Hamilton's. Well, there is similar, and then there is stealing! Among the concepts stolen from Butcher's Dresden Files are the "never-never" (though Harrison calls it "ever-after") and characters such as Gentleman Johnnie Marcone (though Harrison calls him Trent Kalamack). Among the concepts stolen from Hamilton's Anita Blake series are the abusive and hierarchical vampire relationships, and the vampire "business" community. And can anyone recognize a bleached-blond, leather-clad, English-accented vampire who starts out as the heroine's most-feared enemy, then becomes her sex toy? Anyone who watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer would call him Spike (though Harrison renames him Kisten).
In addition to blatantly stealing most of her ideas, Harrison portrays her heroine, Rachel, as being too stupid to live, let alone become the leader of her group of partners. Her angst-ridden vampire roommate, Ivy, is unlikeable and worse, boring. The only interesting character is the pixy, Jenks. I found myself flipping through the pages just to read his dialogue, and that's how this dreadful series managed to earn even 2 stars.
If you are interested in good urban fantasy, Jim Butcher can't be beat. Kelley Armstrong and Patricia Briggs are also excellent, providing believable characters and interesting complexities of the supernatural communities (Laurell K. Hamilton's newer novels have taken a turn towards porn, unfortunately, but her earlier novels are excellent). Stay away from this series -- there is way better out there!
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Hot damn this was good!
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Ok...how else to put this, but WOW! I hadn't figured on liking it as much as I did. It's a great book! If you like the quirkiness and hijinks of Stephanie Plum and the horror/fantasy aspect of a Anita Blake world, then you'll love Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking, the first in the Rachel Morgan story (2 books follow this one).
It was one of those books where you know it's 3 a.m. and you have to get to work at 8 a.m. but hell, just one more chapter, right? Wrong! Warning: This book can keep you up all night! It took 2 days to read thanks to such interuptions as work, sleep, and other inconviences.
I love the way Harrison writes, the story doesn't drag despite the fact that she has so much information to inpart on a new world she's created for us. It's fun to read, the characters are likeable (some not) and realistic. It's not a story of happy endings and it does end with a not so subtle "be the continued" but if you like serial novels such as Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake where the stories flow from one book to another you'll love this book. It's imaginative, creative, funny, and makes you beg for the next installment.
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A Good Start
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I would equate this novel with the first X Men film. It was good, but most of the story was spent on introducing characters and settings for future sequels instead of on plot. In general, the entire series will probably be quite good, but this book lacks quite a bit in the story line department. Most of this first novel is just the main character dodging all the assination attempts thrown her way. The author does a good job explaining the "Hollows" as well as their particular brand of magic, but it's a bit over-explained; hopefully in the next novel none of these exhausting descriptions will be necessary and the book can just flow and concentrate on more important matters. It's a good start -- but I hope there is much more to come. I would consider this the poor man's Harry Dresden.
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When A Kiss Is Just A Bite
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Kim Harrison's debut novel about a young police witch who decides to strike out as an independent, comes as something of a pleasant surprise. Certainly, there has been no lack of tough magician/detective stories in the years since Laurell K Hamilton, Jim Butcher, and some of the urban fantasy crowd moved into the genre. Detective fantasy is a small niche at best, but the overall quality has been good, with only a few wobbles lately. But just when I thought the genre dead, along comes this effort, and the story shows much promise and only a few imperfections. I'm not going to pretend that the book's premises are spectacularly original. Harrison's world is one where magic and the occult were always there, but until a bio-engineered virus wiped out half of the 'normal' folk, the occult world stayed carefully hidden. Now it is a world divided - in this case the normals live in Cincinnati proper and the 'spooks' live across the river in The Hollows. The Hollows is part of the Interland, where technology and medicine are suspect and you never know when you might get hit with a bad spell. Interland Security spends its time hunting down ill-behaved vampires, werewolves who shift out of season, and black magicians. Rachel Morgan is a police runner down on her luck and not getting a lot of respect from her management. She's been relegated to second-rate assignments and only a down and out pixie will work at her side. Instructed to bring in a blackmailing leprechaun she gets offered three wishes and decides it's time to go independent. To her surprise Ivy, an unturned Vampire and expert runner, and Jenks, a pixie with a strong case of obnoxious attitude, decide to join her. This infuriates Rachel's ex-boss, and he takes out a contract on her. The red-headed witch will spend most of this story trying to stay alive long enough to buy off the contract. Harrison turns out to be an effective writer who can out a plot together and build dialog. Plus she has the skill to build a believable urban fantasy world. The novel's biggest weakness is in character design. For all that Rachel is supposed to be a strong enough character to walk out on a dangerous organization, she is surprising squeamish, tends to panic, and it totally terrified that Ivy will bite or kiss her (or bit and kiss her). Ivy is an ex-blood addict who has a surprising inability to say no considering that she is a top operative. Jenks, however, is fairly normal for a pixie. Since Harrison plays all these quirks for comic effect they work well enough for readability. It's hard to predict how well everything will hold together over a series. If the story lines start to get serious then Rachel will be in danger of becoming an Anita Blake clone. If Harrison can keep to lighter weight sarcastic humor without overworking the jokes then we may have a hit on our hands. In the meantime this volume is a pleasant way to spend a few days reading.
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