As most people are probably aware, I am a huge fan of Urban Fantasy. Urban Fantasy, as defined by me, is everyday life with the added twist of magic and monsters. Generally, it includes a main character who has some sort of magical ability or magical lineage, which is starting to force that character into making hard choices. The MC sees him or herself being pulled further away from normal, mundane life by these hard choices... and with each hard decision, he loses a bit of his humanity. The MC is generally very upset about this, and spends a good portion of whatever story he's telling trapped in a cycle of self loathing.
A great, great example of this type of story is any book in the Leandros Brothers series by Rob Thurman. The MC in that series is Cal Leandros who has a nonhuman twist that makes him perhaps the biggest whiner on the planet. The books are saved from being insufferable to read because, in addition to being a big bag of belly-aching, Cal is a sarcastic asshole with excellent comedic timing. The Leandros brothers books are vastly entertaining, at times scary, and always funny thrill rides that everyone should read. There will come various points in each story where you want to take Cal out and shoot him, but alas, his brother Niko would rip your spine out and use it as a hat rack, so best just leave Cal to his own devices. He's likely to get killed eventually anyway.
But I didn't start this post to write about Cal and Niko (although I do so enjoy them). I have recently been introduced to the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. The MC is Atticus O'Sullivan a 2,000 year old Druid from Ireland. Fortunately, Atticus is a big tea drinker, and as we all know, tea is full of antioxidants and apparently that makes you immortal and forever young! Atticus is not your typical Urb-fant hero. For one thing he's a pretty happy, well-adjusted bad ass who just happened to run afoul of Celtic God a couple thousand years ago. The Celts can hold a serious grudge and in the first book, Hounded, Atticus is hiding in Arizona while he tries to avoid getting killed by various Irish deities.
In addition to Atticus being so refreshing to the genre (imagine a character who doesn't spend 300 pages lamenting his loss of human emotion!), these books are hilarious adventures with an oddly sweet touch that will have you hooked before you can say Aenghus Og (that's the god that wants Atticus dead). Keep an eye of out for Oberon the Wolfhound (by far my favorite character) and Leif the vampire. Keep an eye out for all the characters actually, because there isn't one that isn't funny and lovable and that's not easy to do when you're talking vampires, witches and giant squirrels.
The first three books (Hounded, Hexed, Hammered) are out now, but the fourth won't be out until April 2012 (which both sucks and blows, but what can you do?). So when you finish the Iron Druid Chronicles, I suggest picking up the Leandros Brothers books. Nightlife is the first in that series, with five more books ready and waiting to be read. It's a toss up as to which series is funnier... Jokes about Mormons or jokes about Unions? Whatever. As far as I'm concerned that shits just funny no matter who says it.
No comments:
Post a Comment