Hounded by Kevin Hearne
The young-Irish-lad façade does not stand me in good stead when I’m trying to appear scholarly at my place of business — I run an occult bookshop with an apothecary’s counter squeezed in the corner — but it has one outstanding advantage. When I go to the grocery store, for example, and people see my curly red hair, fair skin, and long goatee, they suspect that I play soccer and drink lots of Guinness. If I’m going sleeveless and they see the tattoos all up and down my right arm, they assume I’m in a rock band and smoke lots of weed. It never enters their mind for a moment that I could be an ancient Druid — and that’s the main reason why I like this look. If I grew a white beard and got myself a pointy hat, oozed dignity and sagacity and glowed with beatitude, people might start to get the wrong — or the right — idea.
Atticus O’Sullivan is a 2100-year-old Druid. He’s been lying low for a while, runn... Read More

Hounded by Kevin Hearne

Atticus O’Sullivan is an ancient shapeshifting druid. For a couple thousand years he’s been hiding from Aenghus Óg, the god who used to own the famous sword Fragarach until Atticus relieved him of it on an ancient battlefield. Now Aenghus has some plans to advance himself among the Tuatha Dé Danann and he wants his sword back.

Atticus is now a 21-year-old (it seems) bookshop owner in Tempe, Arizona, near Arizona State University. He sells occult paraphernalia and brews special herbal teas (such as Mobili-Tea and Humili-Tea) for his customers. He’s got a nosey neighbor across the street and a nice Irish widow a few houses down (well, she’s nice as long as you’re not English!). He also has a blood-sucking lawyer. Literally. That’s because the Tempe area attracts lots of paranormals. Some of them are helpful to Atticus, but others are definitely not.

I don’t read a lot of paranor... Read More

Hounded by Kevin Hearne

THE IRON DRUID CHRONICLES, of which Hounded is the first installment, have been on my radar for some time now, but I held them off as a kind of rainy day read. They looked funny, they were based on Irish myth (a personal favorite), and on the whole I thought I’d best save them for a time when I needed a nice, relaxing read.

I was pleasantly surprised on some counts and validated on others. Hounded is a fast-moving, funny little book. It concerns Atticus O’Sullivan, an ancient druid in the modern world with a famous magical sword (Fragarach the Answerer is only slightly less popular in some circles than Excalibur) and the enduring enmity of the Celtic quasi-god Aengus Og. The plot is straightforward and really blurs past as Atticus gets deeper and deeper into glorious trouble.

Hearne knows how to spin an ... Read More

Hounded by Kevin Hearne

I picked up Hounded, the first book of THE IRON DRUID series, last weekend. This is Kevin Hearne’s first book with the character of Atticus O’Sullivan, an ancient Druid living incognito in Tempe, Arizona.

I would probably have passed this by, but these books got rave reviews from Kelly, Kat and Tim. It’s hard to walk away from those recommendations. I’m pleased to report that the first book is every bit as entertaining and enjoyable as predicted.

Atticus is a twenty-one hundred year old druid living in Tempe with his wolfhound companion Oberon, running a metaphysical bookstore. Tempe is full of supernatural creatures. Atticus has b... Read More

Hexed by Kevin Hearne
Turns out that when you kill a god, people want to talk to you. Paranormal insurance salesmen with special “godslayer” term life policies. Charlatans with “godproof” armor and extraplanar safe houses for rent. But, most notably, other gods, who want to first congratulate you on your achievement, second warn you not to try such shenanigans on them, and finally suggest that you try to slay one of their rivals — purely as a shenanigan, of course.
It’s been three weeks since Atticus O’Sullivan slew two gods. This has made him more visible in the supernatural world, and now he’s got a whole new crop of problems. German witches have moved to the area and are attacking him and the Polish witches. Bacchants have arrived, too, and are spreading chaos in Scottsdale. The Morrigan and Brighid are having a power struggle, with Atticus caught in the middle. Coyote wants him to help vanquish a demon that’s eating teenager... Read More

Hexed by Kevin Hearne

Usually, after a hero slays the bad guy in his first book, he gets a break. But not Atticus O’Sullivan. He knew this would happen, too, which is part of the reason he would have preferred to leave Aenghus Óg alone, if he could have. But now he’s done it and, sure enough, there are consequences — everyone knows where he is and everyone wants a piece of him. Suddenly, Tempe Arizona is full of paranormals, most notably a coven of East European witches who fought with Hitler back in WWII, and a group of Bacchants from Las Vegas (where else?) who plan to do more than party.

Like its predecessor, Hexed is chock full of exciting action and tons of laughs. Oberon is in full form here, providing lots of truly funny comic relief (best sidekick ever!), and Atticus himself is hilarious, especially when he’s trying to evade the cops by pretending to be just a doped up occult bookshop own... Read More

Hammered by Kevin Hearne

First things first: This one’s more serious.

Oh, there’s still humor here — and to butcher the nursery rhyme, when Kevin Hearne is funny, he’s very, very funny. I cackled madly as Atticus geeked out over his favorite author and demonstrated his knowledge of Internet memes. On the whole, though, Hammered is a much more serious story than either Hounded or Hexed. While giving us two books’ worth of side-splitting entertainment, Hearne has been sneakily laying the groundwork for Hammered, building up characters and friendships and subplots so that we care deeply about what happens here.

We begin in medias res. Atticus is climbing the World Tree to Asgard so that he can keep his promise to the witch Laksha by bringing her back one of Idunn’s apples. The trip become... Read More

Hammered by Kevin Hearne

After all the help he got dealing with the bad guys in Hounded and Hexed, Atticus owes favors, so he sets out to get those paid off in Hammered. The theme is Norse mythology — first Atticus has to steal one of Iðunn’s golden apples from Asgard, then he must help Leif, his vampire lawyer, kill Thor. Leif must have been planning for this for a long time because he’s bringing along a bunch of other guys who want Thor dead, too.

Hammered feels much different from Hounded and Hexed. Instead of the modern Tempe, Arizona setting, most of the action in Hammered takes place in, or traveling to and from, Asgard. Oberon, who provides the comic relief, is left at home, and so is Granuaile, the wide-eyed perky apprentice. Thus, Read More

Here's another installment of FanLit Asks. Instead of asking one author several questions, we’ve asked several authors just one question. Please leave a comment or suggest a question for us to ask in the future. We’ll choose one commenter to win a copy of Jack Vance's The Eyes of the Overworld(one of my favorites!) on audio CDs (or, if you've got bad taste, something else from our stacks).

Question: Which speculative fiction writer has had the greatest influence on your own writing style and what, specifically, do you find most inspirational about that writer’s style?

Alex Bell: Definitely Terry Pratchett. His Discworld novels got me... Read More