You may have noticed that I did not include the information listed on the back of the books. This is because the description from the back of Hounded (book #1) had a spoiler on it, and I don't want to ruin anything for either you or myself by looking at the other book descriptions.
Instead, I will be giving you my thoughts and impressions, as well as the kind of things you can expect to be reading in this delightful series. Before I do that, however, a quote from the front of the books:
"A page-turning and often laugh-out-loud-funny caper through a mix of the modern and the mythic." -
Air Marmell, author of The Warlords Legacy
From that, you probably gathered (correctly!) that these books are urban fantasy - not my usual literary fare, as I tend to lean more towards pure fantasy.
Mr. Marmell is not kidding when he says, "laugh-out-loud-funny". The series is rife with a humor that never feels forced. Kevin Hearne sucked me in immediately, and after the first paragraph, all I could do is stare in surprise, then burst out laughing. The first word that came to mind to describe the writing style was "delightful", and that feeling has persisted throughout the first two and a half books that I've read, and I'm sure will continue throughout the rest of the series.
The story centers around the last
real, bona fide druid on Earth, who is living in today's society with 2,000+ years' worth of life and memory. All of the assorted gods are real, from the Norse to the Roman to the Greek and any other god you can imagine... and one in particular has a grudge against our mighty druid... a grudge that no one seems to want to let our protagonist forget.
Add in vampires, witches, werewolfs, demons, a saucy elderly Catholic woman, and our druid's entertaining weakness to the mix, and you have the very beginning of
Iron Druid Chronicles.
For the gist of the writing style we're talking about, for the enjoyment of it, and to hopefully pique your interest enough that you just have to go and find out more about this series, following is
the first paragraph of book #1, Hounded: 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.
Warning for those who care about such things:
There is quite a lot of swearing throughout the books. I'm not one who enjoys or tends to use foul language, but in this case, it really goes with the flow of the story, and is not offensive (to me) at all.
Finally, if the idea of Jesus sitting at a restaurant bar, drinking good Irish whiskey with a pagan druid is offensive to you, these books are not for you
YES!
