REVIEW: Ilona Andrews Two-fer

Ilona Andrews
Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1)
Ace
ISBN-10: 0441014895
ISBN-13: 978-0441014897
Urban Fantasy
March 27, 2007

When magic tsunamis the land, it’s a time for witches, mages and all sorts of magical mayhem. While it reigns, technology is snuffed out like so many candles and literally anything can happen. What does ensue is usually a big ‘ole house of a mess for someone like Kate Daniels, lone mercenary, to pick up the pieces to. This time though, Kate’s got to take a break from routine and find her guardian’s killer. All too soon, she’s embroiled in a fight for supremacy amongst the top magical dogs of Atlanta, Georgia. A series of bizarre…even more bizarre than usual…murders leads her to the necromancers, controllers of ravenous vampires, and the Pack, a conglomerate of the area’s many shapeshifter communities. Someone within this power hungry eye of the coming storm has killed someone she cared for, and Kate’s not only taking names, but kicking some paranormal ass in the process.

Ilona Andrews
Magic Burns (Kate Daniels #2)
Ace
ISBN-10: 0441015832
ISBN-13: 978-0441015832
Urban Fantasy
April 1, 2008

The world is well used to the magical tides by now, but lately, magic has been behaving more erratic, swelling to almost violent proportions in a kind of pre-labor contraction pain marathon. Every seven years though, a flare does hit, when magic becomes even more unpredictable and hazardous. And it’s not as if Kate Daniels doesn’t already have enough to deal with, but now she’ll have to add one more class of beings to her list of butt-kicking…the gods and goddesses divine. Her latest assignment, to retrieve stolen Pack maps, leads her on a collision course with the heart of the wildly shifting magical flares. Two gods are set against one another, both vying for rebirth on the mortal plain. Kate’s not the best out there by far (as she professes many a time), but she’s not going to quit, and she’s certainly not going to stand down and let Atlanta, or the world, come to any further ruin.

Yep, spoilers, they’z here somewhere.

First Impressions – They Wuz Wrong

I couldn’t get into Magic Bites at first. As I said in a previous post, where I was hoping to release my frustrations and get them behind me, Kate Daniels just was not grabbing me. By about halfway into Chapter 3, she’d not yet bowled me over, run me over, lifted me up, made me smile or anything attention grabbing, at all. I seriously considered just putting it down, moving on to something else and reserving Magic Bites for a later date. Being that this was first person narrative, and it hadn’t grabbed me yet? I was pretty worried nothing about the books would when the main gal wasn’t very interesting.

But I managed to get over myself, moved on and very soon after that, it finally picked up speed. That magical point? Actually, it was more like a character and that was Curran, the top, pinnacle alpha of the Pack. Their initial meeting is what finally brought some life and spark into Kate. And it took me till then to realize why in the holy hell we have to read a somewhat muted and downtrodden Kate in those first three chapters. She’s not had an easy life by far. No family really, no friends to speak of hardly. She’s pretty much just surviving, and that’s nowhere near living. Curran seemed to be the beginning to Kate’s living.

So from then on, after about the first three chapters, there’s a definite turn in the book and it was all gritty, edge-of-the-seat sailing from there. I can’t remember the last time when I’d discovered how sweet it was to be so wrong in Bookland.

Crap, Atlanta’s A Big Mess

And it works, it really does, in Ms. Andrews’s alternate reality where magic literally takes people back to a kind of Dark Ages. I said it before, but the background in this series is a really good, interesting concept and even though it took me till book two to fully grasp what was going on with it, it still stood out to me as unique enough to get major points. So magic, in this series, almost becomes a character in and of itself, something alive that attacks buildings and skyscrapers as if it’s hungry for the monstrous blocks of concrete and stone. The descriptions of magic waves taking over, dousing electricity, are so…well cool really. You really get the sense that something sentient is literally eating away at Atlanta and tearing it to ruins. I may never again look at Atlanta the same way during a shopping raid.

Then there’s the characters themselves, which compliment this series like ketchup with fries. Shapeshifter packs with a unique dynamic amongst many different kinds, that act as a kind of local gang, but the sort you want on your side. Necromancers (also known as the People) control vampires, which in this world are no more than mindless killing machines that need these necromancer navigators or else they’d be slaughtering anyone in sight. And of course, let’s not forget that gods and goddesses are very real and possible and they like to come out to play too. Rounding all of this paranormal soup together are organizations like the Merc Guild, which Kate is a member of, and The Order, a kind of twist on a group like the Knights Templar, in which they’re a benevolent organization there to help those in magical trouble, but also one that is ruthless and wholly focused on keeping things a certain way too. If you sign a petition with them, you might well be signing yours, or someone else’s, life away, for the greater good of course.

I loved too how, in the second book, we learn the lore and myths and such of the witches involved and the whole happenings surrounding the coming rebirth of the two gods vying for supremacy.

Kate the Great

Kate Daniels gets some tremendous character development in these two relatively short books (both top off at 272 pages). While I first got the impression that she was really only in the merc biz to survive and take care of number one, she evolves into this kind of beacon, a loner that actually cares what happens to the stranger walking past her in the street, whether they survive the next coming disaster to humanity. She’s a mixed bag of morals that I kinda thought worked pretty well by both books’ ends. In Magic Burns, it really endeared me to her when she urges a young girl, Julie, to reconsider the act of sex for sex sake, but rather to wait for someone she truly loved and who loved her too. It’s things like that that make Kate a wholly unique individual in a world that doesn’t seem to care much for anyone.

Kate’s been resisting joining The Order almost her entire life, but with the advent of her guardian’s death, being a member opens too many doors for her to resist. She wields great power (”words” of power that she can invoke and do some interesting things with), perhaps much greater than readers are even made party to by the end of the second book. There’s something wholly unique about her in terms of her personal magic, and it’s hinted at and almost revealed several times, but no dice so far. What will be very interesting to read is whether, when it’s discovered, if characters like Curran, Andrea ( a werehyena friend of Kate’s) and others close to her will still see Kate as a friend, or a tool to use. Because it’s being built up and put on this kind of pedestal, and no doubt those that she counts as enemies will either want to use her or be cowed into submission. Not completely sure of course, but I believe we get a glimpse of how powerful she is when she uses one of her words of power to bring an entire enemy army to their knees toward the end of Magic Burns. Somehow, I think that’s just the tip of the Kate volcano.

What The? Curran the…Something

I love Curran. To me, he brought Kate out into this series’ light and helped make her into a more believable and likable character. They rub on a bit like oil and water throughout the first two books so far, but there’s that classic, underlying sexual tension that peaks the interest levels right nice too. He’s arrogant, overconfident (yeah, I think that’s going to get him into real trouble one day) and Kate seems, for him, to be this big jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t quite fit anywhere at the moment. He’s trying to figure her out and I think he’s beginning to see her, as she is and hopefully with little reservation.

After all, he’s this great, hulking man-beast with his own little kingdom of freaks and geeks, so why not add in Kate, uber mysterious mistress of some kind of super secret power. I just haven’t figured out yet, like I said before, if he’s really in it for Kate herself, and not what she can do for him. There is one scene, where he feeds her, and this is of enormous significance with shapeshifters, and shows a preference for the individual being fed. The interest is there, we’ll see how it progresses, especially with Kate being resistant at the moment.

Aside from Kate, Curran seems to follow the norm of most “good guy” shifters. He’s loyal to his peeps and ultra alpha to the core. Love me some Curran. Now if only he’d make a Curran and Kate sandwich, we’d be getting somewhere.

Freaks and Geeks

Or secondary characters, if you will.

I’m actually really relieved at Andrews’s version of vamps. In this alternate reality, we don’t have the potential for some ghostly pale bloodsucker going all Shakespeare on the heroine. There will be no moody, sensual sucking on necks and heated, glances and caresses of cold hands. Rather, there will be carnage and mayhem should Andrews’s vamps get loose from their necromancer keepers. Closest thing I can visualize are the creatures that are created by the rogue vamp in Blade 2, the ones that lope and run almost on all fours, as they are described somewhat in these books. That moldly looking pale skin and vibrant yet vacant eyes. Shivers of eeevil delight, I’m telling you. It’s kind of a relief or a change to just have these purely evil vampires.

Aside from vampires, we’ve got shapeshifters and weres of all kinds, witches, gods/goddesses, demons, oracles and the list goes on and on. As cluttered as it may sound though, it works just as well as the overall worldbuilding. With magic as off kilter as it can be, it makes sense that just about any myth and legend we’ve thought of could exist in the Kate Daniels books.

And amongst all of this are normal, average humans too. Which we really don’t see much of. I bet they’re thinking Holy SH** most of the time anyway.

Haha! Thas Funny Right There…

Well, Brigg’s was right. Her cover blurb for Magic Bites alludes to the humor found within and I found it too, in abundance. So without further ado, it’s time for some humorous scene quotes!

This one’s where Kate is meeting her plastic surgeon date, Crest, at a Mexican restaurant (from Magic Bites):

…A redheaded waitress thrust herself in my way.

“Excuse me,” she said with a smile that showed off her entire set of teeth. “Are you Kate?”

“yes.”

“Your party is waiting. This way please.”

As she led me past the buffet table, I heard a male voice asking the waitress, “Do they serve gravy with that?”

Only in the South.

Now that right there almost made me fall off my hotel room bed and onto the floor. You see, if you’re not from the South, as I am, you might not know that people will actually ask if gravy is being served and for bread to sop it up with too. I know this, a good friend at one time asked the same Q in a Chinese restaurant. Dead serious, folks.

In Magic Burns, there are several great scenes with Kate and Curran.

Curran smiled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your panties have a bow,” he said.

I looked down…Would it have killed me to check what I was wearing before I pulled the blanket down? “What’s wrong with bows?”

“Nothing.” He was grinning now. “I expected barbed wire. Or one of those steel chains.”

Wiseass. “”I’m secure in myself enough to wear panties with bows on them. Besides, they are comfy and soft.”

“I bet.” He almost purred.

Didn’t want to give too much away with that scene beforehand. Bet you’re wondering (if you’ve not read it yet) why she’s walking around in her undies with him in the room. :D Muuuahhaa.

Not long after, Curran’s weight lifting on his rooftop gym and Kate’s there to help, like always…

“How much are you lifting?”

“Seven hundred.”

Alrighty then. I will just stand over here, out of your way, and hope you don’t remember my promise to kick your ass.

He grinned. “Wanna spot me?”

“No thanks. How about I just scream verbal encouragements at you?” I took a deep breath and barked. “No pain, no gain! That pain is just weakness leaving your body! Come on! Push! Push! Make that weight your bitch!”

Yeah, like Curran did directly following, I cracked up too.

And even a bit later in the book (Magic Burns), Kate’s talking to Ghastek, The People’s regional leader or something, through a vampire he’s sent to her and she decides to use the vamp’s teeth to her advantage:

The vampire stared at me, his mouth slack as Ghastek assessed his options. I took a couple of forms from my desk, put them in the vamp’s mouth, and pulled them up by their edges.

“What are you doing?” Ghastek asked.

“My hole puncher broke.”

“You have no respect for the undead.”

Now again, just imagine how terrifying these vamps are. See my descriptions above again. Are you laughing too? Vamp hole punchers indeed. Har.

I’d love to quote more scenes, but I read somewhere that that could be construed as blogging plagiarism and I quake as I think I’ve reached my personal non-plagiarizing quota. Moral of the humorous scenes though-there are so many more and Kate (or rather Ms. Andrews perhaps) has one great, dry and witty sense of humor. Hmm, just the way I like my 1st POV heroines as a matter of fact.

A Personal Obnoxious Best?

I think this review’s gone on long enough, obnoxiously long enough. :D So in conclusion, I’m glad my first impressions of Magic Bites were wrong. The first book did start off incredibly slow for me, and I found Kate pretty hard to connect with, and that’s important for me with a 1st POV book, to be able to fully understand that narrator’s motives and inner workings. But I think I did come to know Kate very well, and as a reader, perhaps better than she knows herself at the end of the second book. That’s the bonus, isn’t it? Being able to “see” what’s coming and guage how the hero or heroine is going to react. I think Kate’s got plenty of spark left to continue far along in other books. And I’m looking forward to them very much.

So move over, please, Rachel Morgan, Anita Blake, Sookie Stackhouse and make a bit of wiggle room for Kate Daniels. I’m personally always happy to add another series like this to my preferred list.

Magic Bites Rating: Four Scoops

Magic Burns Rating: Five Scoops

A third is in the works, set for release sometime in 2009 and titled Midnight Games Magic Strikes.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• REVIEW: Magic Strikes
• Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
• [REVIEW] Magic Burns – Ilona Andrews
• 03.31.2009 New Release: Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels Series, Book 3) by Ilon…