Marjorie M. Liu

Hunter Kiss  — (2008-2010) Publisher: Demon hunter Maxine Kiss wears her armor as tattoos, which unwind from her body to take on forms of their own at night. They stand between her and her enemies, just as Maxine stands between humanity and the demons breaking out from behind the prison veils. It is a life lacking in love, reveling in death, until one moment — and one man — changes everything.

Available for download at Audible.com

The Iron Hunt

“When I was eight, my mother lost me to zombies in a one-card draw.”

That’s the first sentence of Marjorie M. Liu’s The Iron Hunt, and it’s just about perfect as opening lines go. It’s the primary reason I bought the book. Not only does it draw the reader in, eager to find out how and why this happened, but I’m also pretty darn sure it’s an Angela Carter reference. I love Angela Carter.

It would be misleading to suggest, though, that Marjorie M. Liu sounds like Angela Carter throughout The Iron Hunt. Liu has a different style, one all her own. I loved it. Liu’s style is unusual and won’t be to everyone’s taste. However, I found it visceral and poetic at the same time, and especially good when describing violence and magical visions. A couple of examples:

I tried to hold her to me, but she slipped away, and zombies took her place. So many. Shoulders broad as mountains. Packed tight. Breath hot. Stinking with sweat and winter wool. I could not see faces for shadows, but the zombie in the suit leaned close. Crooked his finger like a hook.

Waking dreams. Walking dreams. Swift dreams, black and white like old scratchy movies tinted and blurred with age. I dreamed in sparks and moments, and saw women in moonlight, pale as snow, hair as black as a raven’s wing—steel in their hands, always, sword bound, hair bound, in sunlight, tattoo bound—and I flew with them, I ran, and their bodies merged into one, a woman large as thunder, with eyes like the starry night, and wolves at her back.

Another aspect of The Iron Hunt that worked well for me was the mythos. Liu blends the myths of many cultures into her story, mixing Sumerian, Asian, Celtic, and Greek in a way that never feels forced or awkward; instead it gives the reader the sense that all of these cosmologies are valuable but incomplete shards of one vast long-forgotten whole.

Liu’s Seattle is painted in—I’d say vivid color, but this is Seattle, so it might be more accurate to say rainy grays. There is a real sense of place in The Iron Hunt.

A small gripe, and this may be a case where the cover-blurb writer sold the novel writer short: there isn't really a romantic subplot. The blurb gives the impression that this is a major focus of the story when, in fact, the heroine and the love interest are already involved and their relationship is written more as background than as plot. I gather that this romantic subplot was actually resolved in a previous short story by Liu. It's not so much that the novel needs a major romantic plot; it's just that it was weird to find the plot quite different from the blurb. The real plot has more to do with Maxine's discovery of new and frightening powers and her growing awareness of her mother and grandmother's history.

I highly recommend The Iron Hunt to anyone who likes urban fantasy, tough female characters, and unique prose. I will definitely be looking up more of Liu’s work while I await the sequel to The Iron Hunt.
—Kelly   Comments

Darkness Calls

I loved The Iron Hunt, and was eagerly looking forward to the sequel. (Has it really only been a year?) I'm happy to report that Darkness Calls is a worthy successor. This time around, Maxine and her boyfriend Grant are being hounded by a mysterious group of religious fanatics and by a horrifically creepy being who introduces himself as "Mr. Erl King," a name that will probably be familiar to myth-geeks like me. Seriously, this is one icky villain. I'm feeling nauseous right now, just remembering some of his scenes.

*shudder*

Anyway, like The Iron Hunt, Darkness Calls features lots of action, some humor, quirky secondary characters, and plenty of nods to mythology and folklore. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Around the middle of the novel, I got briefly bogged down because I was a little confused about what was going on. Part of this was almost certainly my own fault. I didn't reread The Iron Hunt before starting Darkness Calls, and I'd forgotten some of the terminology and some of the world-building, which meant I couldn't always remember who belonged to what supernatural faction and who was trying to kill whom for what reason. Another aspect of the confusion was intentional. Maxine herself doesn't understand everything that's going on, especially not at first. The attempts on her and Grant's lives keep her running and fighting 24/7. When she does have the chance to take a breath and have a deep conversation, the "wise old sage" characters in her life are often more cryptic than helpful.

This feeling of confusion passed quickly, though. I was captivated by the events leading up to Maxine's showdown with the Erl King. The climactic scenes are harrowing and highly emotional. As an added bonus, there are a few more Labyrinth scenes and mystic-vision scenes. These are where Liu's prose and the epic scope of her imagination really shine.

Another thing that was done really, really well: the romance between Maxine and Grant. In The Iron Hunt, Grant was almost background. Maxine was dealing largely with her own personal demons (real and metaphorical). Here, Grant is an integral part of the plot, and so is the relationship between him and Maxine. Many urban fantasy series focus on the formation of new relationships, or on the dramatic turmoil of relationships in crisis. What Liu depicts is rarer in the genre: a long-term relationship that works. Maxine and Grant face tons of problems, but you get the sense that their love and commitment are a match for whatever comes their way.
—Kelly   Comments