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femti11 's review for:
Magic Bites
by Ilona Andrews
I was sort of burnt out on UF from having read a fair amount of less than stellar writing the past couple of years, so I was pleasantly surprised upon encountering a protagonist who didn't have hangups on her frizzy hair, or whatever. Kate likes her strong body for it being strong and capable. Thumbs up. The writing is lean and works pretty well too. I wonder if a 2 writer team is an added strength when it comes to editing?
The plot is sort of obvious from the get go, the pacing is a little strange at times, and some things really date this book: why would there be palm pilots in the future? Gasoline driven cars are kinda pushing the believability ~40 years into the future, and surely Blackberries killed the palm pilots way before 2007 when this was published? The 20th century called, they want their tech back! However, that sort of thing is difficult even for SF writers to get right, so I subbed the palm pilots for smart phones and went on reading.
I'd give this 3.5 stars, but will knock off half a star for the sudden Christianity that popped up in the second half of the book (at the exact 50% mark of mine, since it's got some added extras at the end). Kate did not strike me as a religious person at all up until that moment where all of a sudden she's apparently Christian enough to think she'll actually go to hell when she dies. Bit of a WTF-moment to be honest.
That aside, I did appreciate this rather a lot more than most of the UF I've read the past couple of years (Kate Daniels > Rachel Morgan > Harry Dresden > Dante Valentine for sure), and I've already picked up #2 in the series.
The plot is sort of obvious from the get go, the pacing is a little strange at times, and some things really date this book: why would there be palm pilots in the future? Gasoline driven cars are kinda pushing the believability ~40 years into the future, and surely Blackberries killed the palm pilots way before 2007 when this was published? The 20th century called, they want their tech back! However, that sort of thing is difficult even for SF writers to get right, so I subbed the palm pilots for smart phones and went on reading.
I'd give this 3.5 stars, but will knock off half a star for the sudden Christianity that popped up in the second half of the book (at the exact 50% mark of mine, since it's got some added extras at the end). Kate did not strike me as a religious person at all up until that moment where all of a sudden she's apparently Christian enough to think she'll actually go to hell when she dies. Bit of a WTF-moment to be honest.
That aside, I did appreciate this rather a lot more than most of the UF I've read the past couple of years (Kate Daniels > Rachel Morgan > Harry Dresden > Dante Valentine for sure), and I've already picked up #2 in the series.