Hexed

This book starts pretty much immediately with a long dialogue aimed squarely at the language issues I raised in my review of Hounded (vol. 1 in this series). The author strongly defends his decision to write in a very contemporary voice and idiom. My reading of this is that I'm not the only one who complained. He has some in-cannon reasoning to support his choice, and in the end, it is his choice. That's fine, but this, and the rather constant shout outs to geek culture mean that this series won't rise about light entertainment for me.

That said, this is very well done light entertainment. It's clear that Hearne has thought further ahead than just this novel, and conflicts are nicely set up for several subsequent novels. The supporting characters are well used. We get introduced in this volume to Coyote, the Southwestern Trickster god, and I hope he's an ongoing character, because he is well done. In particular, I like the way he has his own agenda, which he pursues with ruthless determination, making whatever use necessary of anyone handy.

In this volume, Atticus teams up with the Polish coven who were considering whether to kill him in the first volume to defend the greater Phoenix area from some German witches and random maenads. This brings him back into conflict with the Tempe police, and he does everything possible to antagonize them because, why not? There is also a strange run-in with on Orthodox Jew who seems to be out to get him for some reason, and assorted other mayhem.

Hearne understands that the way to make a book entertaining is to never miss an opportunity to add to the protagonist's problems, and he piles them on merrily. This book ends with a clear indication of the direction the next one will be taking, which promises to be entertaining. In addition, he has done an impressive amount of research in various mythoi (I'm guessing that's the plural of mythos). He also really thinks through the way that the various magical abilities and attacks are going to work. Sometimes this leads to getting bogged down in detail, but the overall effect is that he knows what he's doing.

I'm continuing to find this series good bedtime reading, and I'd recommend it to fans of urban fantasy. ( )

4.5 stars
I liked this even better than the first one! ( )

Fun light read. Very funny in parts and I was very sad in another. Lots of action although not any real mortal danger. Lots of sex and sexual innuendos and the protagonist is turned on by all remotely attractive women but then he is a druid and likes to run around naked. He's a bit self-congratulatory but in a very real and reasonable way: he's been around for 2100 years and has killed a god. In this book we find that he respects and is respected by the Christian pantheon and he shows grief in regards to a human which is new. A good successor to book one. ( )

Fun light read. Very funny in parts and I was very sad in another. Lots of action although not any real mortal danger. Lots of sex and sexual innuendos and the protagonist is turned on by all remotely attractive women but then he is a druid and likes to run around naked. He's a bit self-congratulatory but in a very real and reasonable way: he's been around for 2100 years and has killed a god. In this book we find that he respects and is respected by the Christian pantheon and he shows grief in regards to a human which is new. A good successor to book one. ( )

This second installment is much of the same as the first one except with more witches. I highly enjoyed it though. Atticus is one cool character who is still keeping it real. I love his interactions with his dog Oberon, the widow, his nosy neighbor and his lawyers Lief and Hal. The dialogue and Atticus' observations are pretty hilarious. I wished that there were more interactions of this kind. Much like the first one it seems like everyone in their mother is after Atticus...either to kill him or to use him, so these interactions bought much needed levity into the book.

This one also introduced some new characters and religions. This time we have a new organization to look out for, some demon worshiping and Kabbalists. I really enjoy how Hearne weaves it all in and I can't wait to see what happens in the next book. ( )