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Atticus O'Sullivan, the last of the Druids, finds his peaceful life in Arizona shattered by the arrival of an angry Celtic god who wants Atticus's magical sword, forcing Atticus to call upon some unlikely allies for help.Tags
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by binarydude
by al.vick
LongDogMom Similar style and humour, as well as excellent urban fantasy and supernatural mystery.
Member Reviews
I kind of loved this when I read it a couple of years ago. I tried the audiobook for the second book and was driven off by Luke Daniels's rendition of Oberon. Recently I (shall we say) came across Hounded in audio, and decided to give the medium another shot. While I tolerated the Oberon voice better this time around (I'll come back to that), unfortunately I enjoyed the book less.
See, I love Harry Dresden. Really, really love. Like hands-clasped hearts-in-eyes "My hero!" love. And one incident not too far into Hounded illustrated very clearly why I don't and will never feel that way about Atticus O'Sullivan. The Morrigan, with a fine disregard for 21st century proprieties is confronting him in his store, stark naked. Two frat boys show more straggle in hoping to score some pot, see a beautiful naked woman, and react in the only way stoner frat boys could possibly react. The Morrigan takes offense at their temerity and issues their death warrant. Atticus mildly tries to derail her vengeance, but she is set on killing those who dared look upon her and make note of her nudity, and he gives a mental shrug. Oh well. Guess they'll die. And that's the end of that episode. Now, unless I'm gravely mistaken, that is not how the story would run if it was Harry and not Atticus by-standing; I can't believe Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden would not have found a way, some way, to save the two morons, however undeserving they might be – and however much of his own blood and pain it might cost him.
I can't help being judge-y about a great and powerful druid whose two thousand years have honed him into a really very self-serving and self-centered person.
It was also a little troubling that he takes moral objection to Laksha's nasty habit of bumping souls out of their bodies – it's terrible and unforgivable – but the slightly eye-widening body count he racks up is perfectly fine. He excuses it at some point by pointing out that his druidic beliefs include reincarnation – killing someone just ensures that they'll be moving on to their next life that much sooner. But Laksha's faith says much the same thing.
Good lord, werewolves in this universe can't control themselves better than to just change in front of a muggle? That's pathetic.
I did very much like "Shut up. I'm Irish." But I was otherwise not nearly as favorably impressed by Hearne's take on Irishness this time around. Yeah, Atticus O'Sullivan is not one of my favorite people right now.
And, sadly, neither is his hound Oberon. I loved him to pieces when I first read the book, as most people seem to. This time I had a harder time reconciling the not-quite-smart but very-much-not-stupid dialogue assigned to him with the fact that he's an adult Irish wolfhound. It made me a little queasy, actually – what did Atticus do to him to make him this way? At times he came off as a child, irrepressible and sometimes silly; at times he came off as much more intelligent, pulling out references that seemed unlikely, and providing tactical and philosophical insight; then a little while later he'd be making me cringe again with his obsession with Genghis Khan. I didn't remember the inconsistency in his portrayal, but it felt glaringly obvious this time. And the whole French poodle fixation was nauseating. That little tag at the end in which he gets his surprise made me surprisingly – well, again, queasy. That's kind of my takeaway from Oberon this go-round: deep uneasiness.
Not to mention that this time round I was for whatever reason less forgiving of what was basically a ripoff of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzies, in which adorable furry teddy-bear-appearing sentient [sic] creatures develop obsessions on historical figures and throw themselves into recreating those figures as accurately as diminutive furry creatures can.
The narration by Luke Daniels was excellent – mostly. Accents, and voices young and old, male and female, stoner and werewolf and goddess – all well done. But you know what I still hated? Oberon. Every single time he voiced a line from the wolfhound I expected it to end with a "Ruh roh, Raggy!" or a full-on silly Don Messick Scooby giggle. This might have had a lot to do with my Oberon issues described above – but not everything.
Some books you just want to read over and over, and love more with each revisit. Some books, apparently, should be read only once. show less
See, I love Harry Dresden. Really, really love. Like hands-clasped hearts-in-eyes "My hero!" love. And one incident not too far into Hounded illustrated very clearly why I don't and will never feel that way about Atticus O'Sullivan. The Morrigan, with a fine disregard for 21st century proprieties is confronting him in his store, stark naked. Two frat boys show more straggle in hoping to score some pot, see a beautiful naked woman, and react in the only way stoner frat boys could possibly react. The Morrigan takes offense at their temerity and issues their death warrant. Atticus mildly tries to derail her vengeance, but she is set on killing those who dared look upon her and make note of her nudity, and he gives a mental shrug. Oh well. Guess they'll die. And that's the end of that episode. Now, unless I'm gravely mistaken, that is not how the story would run if it was Harry and not Atticus by-standing; I can't believe Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden would not have found a way, some way, to save the two morons, however undeserving they might be – and however much of his own blood and pain it might cost him.
I can't help being judge-y about a great and powerful druid whose two thousand years have honed him into a really very self-serving and self-centered person.
It was also a little troubling that he takes moral objection to Laksha's nasty habit of bumping souls out of their bodies – it's terrible and unforgivable – but the slightly eye-widening body count he racks up is perfectly fine. He excuses it at some point by pointing out that his druidic beliefs include reincarnation – killing someone just ensures that they'll be moving on to their next life that much sooner. But Laksha's faith says much the same thing.
Good lord, werewolves in this universe can't control themselves better than to just change in front of a muggle? That's pathetic.
I did very much like "Shut up. I'm Irish." But I was otherwise not nearly as favorably impressed by Hearne's take on Irishness this time around. Yeah, Atticus O'Sullivan is not one of my favorite people right now.
And, sadly, neither is his hound Oberon. I loved him to pieces when I first read the book, as most people seem to. This time I had a harder time reconciling the not-quite-smart but very-much-not-stupid dialogue assigned to him with the fact that he's an adult Irish wolfhound. It made me a little queasy, actually – what did Atticus do to him to make him this way? At times he came off as a child, irrepressible and sometimes silly; at times he came off as much more intelligent, pulling out references that seemed unlikely, and providing tactical and philosophical insight; then a little while later he'd be making me cringe again with his obsession with Genghis Khan. I didn't remember the inconsistency in his portrayal, but it felt glaringly obvious this time. And the whole French poodle fixation was nauseating. That little tag at the end in which he gets his surprise made me surprisingly – well, again, queasy. That's kind of my takeaway from Oberon this go-round: deep uneasiness.
Not to mention that this time round I was for whatever reason less forgiving of what was basically a ripoff of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzies, in which adorable furry teddy-bear-appearing sentient [sic] creatures develop obsessions on historical figures and throw themselves into recreating those figures as accurately as diminutive furry creatures can.
The narration by Luke Daniels was excellent – mostly. Accents, and voices young and old, male and female, stoner and werewolf and goddess – all well done. But you know what I still hated? Oberon. Every single time he voiced a line from the wolfhound I expected it to end with a "Ruh roh, Raggy!" or a full-on silly Don Messick Scooby giggle. This might have had a lot to do with my Oberon issues described above – but not everything.
Some books you just want to read over and over, and love more with each revisit. Some books, apparently, should be read only once. show less
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old--when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.
Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power--plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his show more vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish--to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.
My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt, the 28th, is to discuss your favorite animal in fiction. Who else could it be but Oberon the Wolfhound?
Let me start with this:
Now, I ask you. Can a normally-constructed reader of any but the grimmest and least amusant of books fail to see the humor in that?
I am on record as being no fan of phauntaisee nawvelles with their styoopid Misspelynnges and Random capitaLizations to indicate magjickq is in Use. So I approach each recommended genre book with, well, trepidation. (I'm stretching for polite words that mean "strenuous desire to insult author, publisher, and recommender.") So these couple of ladies here on LT tag-teamed me, beat my head into the mat, kicked my nose through the back of my head, and started breaking bones I can't operate without until I got this book and read it.
Yeah. That.
The more observant of my readers will have noted the four-star rating above. This was not in the least a foregone conclusion, even with the chuckles and the muffled hoots the book provided. I am not any kind of a fan of straight-people sex, having memories of same that range from boredom on the high end all the way down to horror. Three stars is the most I'll give anything with more than a token window-dressing of girl-sex. Yes, I know lots of people do it, but it's icky and I don't want to hear about it. That fourth star?
Okay, Hearne. I'm gaffed through the gills. Yes, my mouth still fills with nausea-water at the sex, but you've hit The Nerve. Wry and funny? Yes please. Handsome, tattooed, and Irish? TRIFECTA! Twenty-one hundred years old and talks like a lamebrained kid? Well...
And now we're on a different plane of storytelling.
In the voice of the character, the author explains why anachronism is alive and well, and does so with a level of character development that shows something I don't get very often in any book: Respect for the reader. "I'm telling you a story about an immortal magical being who lives in the armpit of creation, USA, voluntarily, and needs to blend in as much as possible. Here is how it's done, why it's done, and what you can expect from the character."
Not only is the fourth star secured to the sleeve with tiny, tough stitches, but the sale is made for book two and book three. Of seven (I think), mind you, but still that's more than I'd even *dream* of doing absent this surprising development.
As Atticus himself said, “Winning ugly is still winning.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less
The Publisher Says: Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old--when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.
Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power--plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his show more vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish--to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.
My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt, the 28th, is to discuss your favorite animal in fiction. Who else could it be but Oberon the Wolfhound?
Let me start with this:
There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane.
Now, I ask you. Can a normally-constructed reader of any but the grimmest and least amusant of books fail to see the humor in that?
I am on record as being no fan of phauntaisee nawvelles with their styoopid Misspelynnges and Random capitaLizations to indicate magjickq is in Use. So I approach each recommended genre book with, well, trepidation. (I'm stretching for polite words that mean "strenuous desire to insult author, publisher, and recommender.") So these couple of ladies here on LT tag-teamed me, beat my head into the mat, kicked my nose through the back of my head, and started breaking bones I can't operate without until I got this book and read it.
When you're in the middle of a killing field and the fucking Chooser of the Slain tells you to do something, you do it.
Yeah. That.
The more observant of my readers will have noted the four-star rating above. This was not in the least a foregone conclusion, even with the chuckles and the muffled hoots the book provided. I am not any kind of a fan of straight-people sex, having memories of same that range from boredom on the high end all the way down to horror. Three stars is the most I'll give anything with more than a token window-dressing of girl-sex. Yes, I know lots of people do it, but it's icky and I don't want to hear about it. That fourth star?
Monty Python is like catnip for nerds. Once you get them started quoting it, they are constitutionally incapable of feeling depressed.
Okay, Hearne. I'm gaffed through the gills. Yes, my mouth still fills with nausea-water at the sex, but you've hit The Nerve. Wry and funny? Yes please. Handsome, tattooed, and Irish? TRIFECTA! Twenty-one hundred years old and talks like a lamebrained kid? Well...
I have been around long enough to discount most superstitions for what they are: I was around when many of them began to take root, after all. But one superstition to which I happen to subscribe is that bad juju comes in threes. The saying in my time was, "Storm clouds are thrice cursed," but I can't talk like that and expect people to believe I'm a twenty-one year-old American. I have to say things like, "Shit happens, man.”
And now we're on a different plane of storytelling.
In the voice of the character, the author explains why anachronism is alive and well, and does so with a level of character development that shows something I don't get very often in any book: Respect for the reader. "I'm telling you a story about an immortal magical being who lives in the armpit of creation, USA, voluntarily, and needs to blend in as much as possible. Here is how it's done, why it's done, and what you can expect from the character."
Not only is the fourth star secured to the sleeve with tiny, tough stitches, but the sale is made for book two and book three. Of seven (I think), mind you, but still that's more than I'd even *dream* of doing absent this surprising development.
As Atticus himself said, “Winning ugly is still winning.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less
Sometimes I come across a novel that should be perfect for me - an interesting premise, a genre I typically love, potentially fascinating characters… it should have the makings of a real winner. And then all that amazing promise fizzles with every turn of the page.
Unfortunately, that’s what happened with HOUNDED. I should have loved it. I wanted to love it. Instead, I was at times bored, annoyed, and frustrated. Not to mention, I rolled my eyes way too often while reading.
The characters were lackluster overall. Atticus is supposed to be several centuries old, but he comes across as seriously clueless about anything that really matters: women, relationships, even religions that aren’t part of his particular pantheon. You’d think show more anyone who’s lived through a few centuries would learn a thing or two about other people’s cultures. And I quickly got fed up with him wanting to sleep with just about any woman he came across - mostly incredibly powerful Goddesses who apparently have no one better to get it on with than this guy. It’s as though the author took every guy’s Bond fantasy and transferred it to Atticus: magic, women, violence - a frat boy’s perfect read. Plus, Atticus is practically invulnerable, and he knows it. He scoffs in the face of any threat that comes his way, and then when he battles these supposedly super powerful gods and their minions, he takes them out without breaking a sweat.
And let’s talk about the many - many, MANY - deities who kept popping up at every opportunity. They were all one dimensional, self-centered and uninteresting. I mean, these are Gods and Goddesses with entire mythos built up around them, and they were all such bores! I wanted to like Oberon, I really did, but his dialogue exchanges with Atticus were so juvenile they made me roll my eyes pretty far into the back of my head.
I also got super frustrated by the fact that it was so incredibly easy for Atticus and his friends to hide the evidence of massive battles that often took place right in the middle of a city street. How convenient then that no one ever drove, walked, or rode by - and that on the occasion someone noticed something, the problem was easily solved with a literal flick of the wrist and muttering some magical mumbo jumbo.
Maybe I’m simply the wrong audience for this book, but I just couldn’t get into it at all. show less
Unfortunately, that’s what happened with HOUNDED. I should have loved it. I wanted to love it. Instead, I was at times bored, annoyed, and frustrated. Not to mention, I rolled my eyes way too often while reading.
The characters were lackluster overall. Atticus is supposed to be several centuries old, but he comes across as seriously clueless about anything that really matters: women, relationships, even religions that aren’t part of his particular pantheon. You’d think show more anyone who’s lived through a few centuries would learn a thing or two about other people’s cultures. And I quickly got fed up with him wanting to sleep with just about any woman he came across - mostly incredibly powerful Goddesses who apparently have no one better to get it on with than this guy. It’s as though the author took every guy’s Bond fantasy and transferred it to Atticus: magic, women, violence - a frat boy’s perfect read. Plus, Atticus is practically invulnerable, and he knows it. He scoffs in the face of any threat that comes his way, and then when he battles these supposedly super powerful gods and their minions, he takes them out without breaking a sweat.
And let’s talk about the many - many, MANY - deities who kept popping up at every opportunity. They were all one dimensional, self-centered and uninteresting. I mean, these are Gods and Goddesses with entire mythos built up around them, and they were all such bores! I wanted to like Oberon, I really did, but his dialogue exchanges with Atticus were so juvenile they made me roll my eyes pretty far into the back of my head.
I also got super frustrated by the fact that it was so incredibly easy for Atticus and his friends to hide the evidence of massive battles that often took place right in the middle of a city street. How convenient then that no one ever drove, walked, or rode by - and that on the occasion someone noticed something, the problem was easily solved with a literal flick of the wrist and muttering some magical mumbo jumbo.
Maybe I’m simply the wrong audience for this book, but I just couldn’t get into it at all. show less
Holy cow! The first installment in a relatively new urban fantasy series, Hounded demonstrates that Kevin Hearne is definitely a contender in what is getting to be a crowded field. Druidry, witchcraft, vampires, werewolves, G/gods and G/goddesses, demons, and Death on a pale horse - all can be found here, but not once does this magical menagerie get confusing or hard to follow.
Oh, and there's an Irish Wolfhound named Oberon that is simply the coolest fictional dog ever written, in my opinion, and an endearing Irish widow who drinks before Sunday service and can get along with just about anyone as long as they aren't evil or British.
It's an awesome book. Read it. You'll want to read the next one right after.
Oh, and there's an Irish Wolfhound named Oberon that is simply the coolest fictional dog ever written, in my opinion, and an endearing Irish widow who drinks before Sunday service and can get along with just about anyone as long as they aren't evil or British.
It's an awesome book. Read it. You'll want to read the next one right after.
I absolutely loved this book. Atticus is a terrific hero - he's smart, sexy, magical and extremely sarcastic (which I always love). I loved the humor in this story. Atticus' interactions with his dog, Oberon, were great. Hearne did a great job of developing his world and a back story for Atticus and his relationships with the different gods. I felt like Hearne spent a lot of time thinking this book out. I've heard that these books continue to get better and I am excited about watching the world develop. I'm also hopeful that Atticus will find love with a certain bartender. :)
A really fun mix of Druidic lore, urban fantasy, myth, and quippy humor. The relationship between Atticus and his hound is awesome. There's something about the way the Atticus describes his abilities, magical items, and combat that is very reminiscent of gaming (tabletop/D&D style, not electronic/computer style). I wonder if the author is a gamer? At any rate, that makes the book even more fun for me. I also appreciated a surprisingly fresh reflection of pagan values to go with all the magic. But one of my favorite things about the book was reading about a long-lived human who relishes life and still has a sense of humor, rather than the typical tortured semi-immortal viewpoint. Fast paced, colorful, and funny. Recommended!
I know I keep saying this but I think I'm trapped/hooked/spiraling out-of-control! I have NEVER liked books that contain a blood'n'guts aspect . . . so WHY have I found myself focusing on vampire/witch/werewolf/sword/amulet/sorcery stuff?!?! Who knows. Regardless, Kevin Hearne's Hounded held my interest from start to finish . . blood, guts 'n' all. *sigh* FIVE STARS - for excitement, an adorable dog and an equally adorable Irishman who won my heart! Thanks, Patrick Rothfuss, for the review that turned me to the dark side! ;)
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Author Information
68+ Works 22,546 Members
Kevin Hearne is a native of Arizona. He graduated from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and now teaches high school English. He is the author of the popular The Iron Druid Chronicles Series. His title, Scourged, made the bestseller list in 2018. (Bowker Author Biography)
Kevin Hearne is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Hounded
- Original title
- Hounded
- Original publication date
- 2011-05-03
- People/Characters
- Atticus O'Sullivan (Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin); Oberon (Irish wolfhound); Aenghus Óg; The Morrigan; Flidais; Granuaile MacTiernan (show all 14); Radomila; Laksha Kulasekaran; Hallbjörn "Hal" Hauk; Leif Helgarson; Malina Sokolowski; Mr. Semerdjian; Kate MacDonagh; Gunnar Magnusson
- Important places
- Tempe, Arizona, USA; Arizona, USA; Tír na nÓg
- Dedication
- Look, Mom, I made this!
Can we put it on the fridge? - First words
- There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Only five?
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- 4,084
- Reviews
- 300
- Rating
- (3.94)
- Languages
- 6 — English, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 31
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 18
