ÜberSciFiGeek

I read a lot of fantasy and urban mythology novels but not a large amount of vampire or supernatural fiction, mainly because most of the ones I’ve started to read turned out to be romance novels, something I’m not a fan of. Yes, I read the Twilight books at the request of my teenagers, and the one-off vampire and other supernatural books I heard good things about here and there, but in general I’m not a supernatural junkie. That being said, I think I’ve finally found a supernatural series that doesn’t fall into the romance or tween categories.

EOS Books (a division of HarperCollins) just released Black Magic Sanction, the newest book in The Hollows series from best-selling author Kim Harrison. The series is kind of a mixed-genre fantasy with a healthy balance of urban mythology (think Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint), supernatural adventure (vampires, witches, demons and a host of otherwordly fairy folk) and revisionist history wrapped up in a classic detective/mystery novel style.

Rachel is a bit of a jack of all trades: a detective, a bounty hunter and a witch (who’s recently discovered some unsettling information about her heritage). Her business is to track down vampires, werewolves, banshees, demons and other supernatural creatures who’ve found themselves on the wrong side of the law. In her world, so very close to our own, these creatures are not only real but are part of mainstream society. During an event called “The Turn”, a virus devastated the human population and the supernaturals (or Inderlanders as they call themselves) decided to reveal themselves because they were no longer outnumbered by the humans. The government system collapsed and was replaced by two organizations: the Inderlander Security service (run by non-humans) and the Federal Inderlander Bureau (run by humans).

Rachel lives in the Hollows (the Inderlander side of Cincinnati) in an old Gothic Church with a living vampire named Ivy (there are two kinds of living vampires: the low blood — humans who’ve been infected by the traditional undead vampires, inheriting some of the qualities of a vampire but not the benefit of immortality at death; and high blood — those who were born infected with the virus and will thus rise again as an undead vampire when their mortal body dies. Ivy is the latter, a high blood vampire and last of her family to still be living) and a pixy named Jenks. They are her associates and surrogate family, assisting her in her cases and sharing her life.

Due to events in a previous book, which aren’t completely explained in Black Magic Sanction, Rachel has now been shunned by the Coven (the governing body of witches) for using black magic (something she detests), and turned from the hunter into the hunted. She finds herself kidnapped and imprisoned, facing a pretty grim fate. Fortunately, her friends are there for her and she escapes, setting off a chain of chaotic events where you can’t help but feel sorry for her as she gets battered and bruised, used and abused, while trying to free herself once and for all from the grip of the Coven and various adversaries from her past. As the story unfolds, you learn more about the history of the Inderlanders and how Rachel has now found herself on the wrong side of their law.

There is a huge cast of characters and creatures in the books, far too many to examine them all, but a few in particular play a large role in Rachel’s life:

Ivy embodies the familiar vampyric struggle between dark desires and trying to live a “normal” life. She has a deep affection and close relationship with Rachel, a tender and sweet friendship that anyone would be lucky to have. There is some reference to Ivy biting Rachel at some point in the past, the end result of which is a supernatural bond, a lasting longing and sensual tension between them that has remained unacted upon. I say sensual not sexual because the relationship is a very close friendship where the love they feel for each other is so strong that it seems the lines sometimes get blurred, rather then the typical overtly sexual flirtation often seen in close same-sex friendships in popular media.

The pixy Jenks is the comic relief of the story. He, his wife and a multitude of their children live beneath a tree stump in the churchyard where Rachel lives. Just reading his dialog makes me think of Darby O’Gill and other “drunken Irishmen” from various books and film. He’s a sly fox, smart-mouthed and spunky. He loves defiling the famous Disney pixie Tinkerbell by using her name as his favorite curse word (he randomly peppers his conversations with exclamations such as “Tink’s Titties” and other filthier variations). He and the other pixies shed multi-colored dust, the color changing along with their mood, and are all feisty creatures breaking away from pixie tradition not only by closely associating with a human but by staying together as a family rather than separating much the same way birds and other creatures do after leaving the nest.

Algaliarept (Al) is kind of the Leo Getz of the Ever-After, the magical plane that exists between and beyond normal existence. Typically, it’s where demons reside (the witches fled to our plane of existence some 5,000 years ago and a war between the demons and elves resulted in the elves being ousted approximately 2,000 years ago) and can only be reached by tapping into lines of energy that are threaded throughout all levels of reality. Al is a wheeler and dealer, taking every opportunity to acquire “familiars” that he quickly sells or trades off in exchange for regaining his status and belongings, both lost when he hides a very important fact about Rachel from the rest of the demon community. Sometimes her enemy, sometimes her mentor, Al and Rachel have a very dangerous and volatile relationship. He’s almost as much her captor as she is his at times.

Gordian Pierce was a ghost for nearly 200 years. He encountered Rachel when she was a teen and became infatuated with her. After years of haunting her and trying to get her attention, by Black Magic Sanction he has gained a body and life again. While he actively pursues a romantic relationship with her, she is highly distrustful of him and his motivations, which she suspects are less than sincere. She’s had a string of bad relationships and has a habit of making bad choices, something she doesn’t intend to do again with Pierce. Having become a virtual slave to Al, Pierce has been placed as a guardian over Rachel to help protect her from the Coven as they seek to capture and neutralize her, one way or the other. He speaks with a dialect of the 1800’s and often says things wrong when trying to use modern vernacular. He feels far too comfortable with casually using black magic when he sees the need, something that disturbs Rachel to no end as she struggles to prove to herself and everyone else that she is NOT a bad witch.

Trenton Kalamack is kind of like the Godfather of Elves. Masquerading as a human, he lives a dual life as a politician on City Council while running illegal operations in the human and Hollows criminal undergrounds. An ongoing protagonist, he’s known Rachel since they were children and they are enemies, due in large part to the fact that while she was trying to expose his crimes and bring him to justice, she managed to lay claim on him as her familiar, though she has not yet enforced that claim.

I haven’t read the other books in the series so wasn’t sure what to expect. I usually find it hard to follow or get emotionally invested in the characters when I start a book in the middle of the series, but was pleasantly surprised that this wasn’t the case with Black Magic Sanction. While there are many references to events and characters in the earlier books in the series, with little explanation, I didn’t feel completely lost. Instead of feeling like a confused outsider, I found myself just carried along with Rachel as her life careens out of control. Black Magic Sanction is a fast-paced, action-packed supernatural adventure with unexpected twists and turns. I can usually figure out the general plot of a book and what direction it is going in, but, with this one, I really didn’t have a clue how things were going to turn out.

If you are a fan of supernatural books, you’ll love Black Magic Sanction. The characters are interesting and each has their own quirky characteristics providing some real depth to them, fleshing them out from the stereotyped, two-dimensional cast of characters that overpopulate popular fiction. It’s these characters and well-developed relationships that make me want to track down the rest of the books in this series and start over from the beginning.

Order now at Amazon.com:
Black Magic Sanction (Canada)
Black Magic Sanction (US)

You can also get Black Magic Sanction at your local book store.