The Iron Hunt

Title: The Iron Hunt
Author: Marjorie M. Liu
Series: Hunter Kiss, Book 1 (BUT Prequel novella “Hunter Kiss” in Wild Thing anthology)
Publication Info: Ace, July 2008
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Marjorie M. Liu is a brilliant word smith. A master in the art of language. Delightful to read. Deep and pregnant with meaning. Touching the heart of the human condition. Anyone with an inkling to write should read her work and take notes. I marked so many passages that were beautiful or striking, and still there were more. Every page is filled with brushstrokes of magic, words and phrases that sparkle and bleed. Here are just a few examples:

The demon tilted his head, just so, and his body twisted, flowing like the skim of a shark through water. he danced when he moved; on the city street, wrapped in shadows: a kiss on the eyes, a devil’s ballet, and only his feet moved, only his cloak had arms; and his hair, rising and flowing as though lost in a storm. I heard thunder, and when his toes sliced spirals in the concrete, I listened to the wind bury winter; and when I tasted his grace, his grace had no name; only, night became something else in his presence, as though darkness had a soul, here, swaying to heartbeats roaring, (p70-1).

I dreamed of a valley cast in moonlight, spread beneath me like round cheeks, and there were wing tips against my feet, like the cloak of a dragon, and a taste in my throat that was cinnamon and spice, and something worse, awful and metallic-creamy like butter made from blood, (114).

Her gaze was black as a shark, black as a doll, black as oil rich from rock, slick and hot, and the ageless intelligence of her gaze coated me in a miasma filled with such forebodings I could hardly think straight, (p169).

Purple velvet clouds streaked the sky east, humming with a wink of gold. Dawn soon, punched by the sun, (p269).

The set-up and plot are terribly complex, but here’s my best shot:

Thousands of years ago there was a huge war between demons and humans and the demons were imprisoned behind the Veil. The Wardens were charged with hunting down the ones that manage to escape the prison, but only one Warden is left on earth: Maxine Kiss. Maxine is The Hunter. Passed from mother to daughter for centuries, the role of Hunter is to slay demons who prey on humans through demonic possession. The Hunter role comes with five demon tattoos that cover the Hunter’s body, providing body armor stronger than metal by day and peeling off her skin to fight at night. These “good” demons are referred to as “the boys”, only one of which can communicate with words.

Now the Veil is weakening and is about to fall. Something bad gets out and begins to hunt Maxine, who is living in Seattle at a homeless shelter run by her boyfriend Grant. A private investigator is murdered and in his pocket is a newspaper with Maxine Kiss written on it. The police question Maxine, and she decides to find her own answers. She runs into zombies sent by the demon queen Blood Mama and she learns that the Veil imprisons worse things than just the zombie-demons. Then she finds a picture of her grandmother, who she never met, with an archeologist who she thinks just might be her grandfather. Surprise, he is the speaker at a gala event that night at the Seattle Art Museum. She finds him, and it turns out he knows Things, but isn’t allowed to tell her. This is the theme of the book. Everyone but Maxine knows things, but isn’t allowed to share them. Then this other demon shows up, with knives for feet (see first quote above) and she doesn’t trust him and he talks in riddles and her “boys” can’t tell her what’s up. And then this other dude pushes her under a bus, but then it turns out he is supposed to protect her. And he can’t tell her anything either. She’s confused. I’m confused. Anyways…

And then there is this kid who Maxine is trying to protect, but the zombies beat him up. And then Maxine blacks out and goes to the Labyrinth, this between worlds place perhaps inspired by Borges, and she gets lost in something called the wasteland and gets this sword that turns into a ring. And there is something inside her that wakes up and helps her battle the Big Evil something that escaped from the Veil at the beginning of the book. But we never find out what the thing inside her is. It reminded me of Rhage’s Beast.

Was that confusing enough?

THE IRON HUNT is Ms. Liu’s first work of Urban Fantasy. She wrote a prequel which sets up the world of the book. Unfortunately I did not know this. Dear reader, please read the Prequel first (or this brief review). I enjoyed The Iron Hunt, but I admit I was confused through most of it. My usual reaction to Urban Fantasy novels is to think there is too much back story. This book left the opposite impression: not enough. I would have liked more explanations. Fewer sentence fragments. The heroine dreams of unicorns and dragons and wolves and blood. Are these memories of the distant past? Avatars intermingling with her predecessors? More questions than answers.

Setting

One of the coolest things (to me) about this book is that it is set in SEATTLE. Ms. Liu passed the test: referring to Pike Place Market instead of Pike’s Market. It’s the biggest way to differentiate a tourist from someone who knows. You can say “Pike Place” or “The Market” or “Pike Place Market” but never, ever, “Pike’s Market.” Ms. Liu has some great passages about my fair city:

Seattle in winter was an awful place to be. Always wet, hardly a glimpse of the sun except on rare days when it burned briefly free and rained down rays of precious ghostly light; or at night, when clouds slivered and stars glittered, adn the moon, when it rose, glowed, (p26).

Isn’t that beautiful? I didn’t like this one so much:

Yuppie, a little too preoccupied with what other people thought, and only superficially friendly, (p29).

We’re very friendly, thank you very much.

Good weather brought folks out in droves, all of them stripped down to shorts and T-shirts and those odd, clunky sandals that seemed to be a fad in this part of North America. The temperature was only fifty degrees, but it might have been Arizona in the summer for all the skin I saw. Poor sun-starved bastards, (p152).

Sad, but true.

One of the other interesting things about the book is Ms. Liu’s portrayal of homelessness and street kids. I just read a fascinating blog post on the subject of what Urban Fantasy authors get wrong when romanticizing growing up on the streets written by an author who actually grew up on the streets, to which UF author Lilith Saintcrow pointed me. Lilith, author of the Dante Valentine series, writes:

I can’t count how many books I’ve read, YA and others, that make homelessness “romantic”. Or that gloss over the danger of it. Or the fact that when you are on the fringe, everything has a price and nothing is free. I get a little buggy when I read something that to my mind glorifies street life. The streets are hard. Nobody ends up there because they’re well-adjusted or special. If you’re going to write about street life, please don’t think it’s glamorous or fun or “edgy”.

I believe, and this is my own sheltered opinion, that Ms. Liu does a good job of realistically portraying homelessness and street life. If you read UF or are writing UF and thinking of giving your character a hard-knock childhood, I strongly recommend the article.

Recommendation

I recommend The Iron Hunt, but I liked her paranormal romance better thus far. Ms. Liu’s writing style has changed for this book, at least compared to the beginning of her Dirke & Steele series. Her style was much smoother in Shadow Touch, and I loved it. She still had the elegant descriptions, but many more complete sentences that helped communicate the ideas better. I will continue to read through all of Ms. Liu’s backlist and intend to read her future releases. The sequels to The Iron Hunt will most likely answer many of the questions I have about it. Even if they don’t, I learn so much about the craft of writing from her novels that it makes up for my confusion about parts of her world building. Perhaps that is what they teach in law school: to be facund but not necessarily perspicuous. ;) Jk.

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Tags: Book lovers & reviewers, Hunter Kiss series, Marjorie M. Liu, The Iron Hunt, Urban Fantasy

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