Customer Reviews

Hard Magic (Luna Books)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved Hard Magic. It wasn't particularly thrilling or suspenseful, but so supremely interesting that I could not put it down. The set-up, the characters and the concept all screamed originality. Laura Anne Gilman put forth some good, old-fashioned creativity that made the story something different and therefore something special.

Magic users (aka Talent) can create any type of spell by using basic scientific logic. The team, P.U.P.I (Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigations), uses these spells to find and analyze forensic evidence while investigating Talent on Talent crime.

I really enjoyed Gilman's method of naming the characters. Instead of over the top magically showy names, each character has an average Joe name. Bonnie, Ben, Nick. It relates well with the concept that these characters are average people, just with the ability to use magic. Each character on the team has their own strengths and weaknesses that they offer the group, making each better suited for different aspects of an investigation. Bonnie is a refreshing main character. While the book didn't have any blatantly sexual scenes, we learn that Bonnie is very comfortable with her sexuality. She's not one to be labeled, but she does like both men and women based on their personalities rather than their genitals. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a character not hung up on sexual morality while reading a book without explicit sex scenes.

I'm excited there is going to be further books building on what's started in Hard Magic as the story could really be taken anywhere. I'm interested to see if the focus shifts to more mystery or if it remains on the magical aspect of the investigations. Either way, Hard Magic is a fantastic start to a new series.

This book was so original and entertaining. Although there really wasn't much action, or suspense until near the end, the whole premise of the book was entertaining enough not to need it. Bonnie is thrown into this group to try to help solve crimes commited by Talents (regular people who can use current to do magic).

Bonnie and the rest of the team spend alot of time trying to figure out how to take regular CSI routines, and find a magical way to perform them, to find magical clues. Once they get a case it's all on the line as they have to use those new spells to prove that a high-profile suicide was actually a high-profile murder. If they can't solve this one than Bonnie's new career, and only source of income, will disappear.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. They are all regular people with their own strengths, but put together in this group all of their strengths blend well to make a really great team. With only a little bit of sexual tension, and not much romance, it was a great investigation book. I'm excited for the next in the series since it was left wide open with alot of different directions that it could go. I definitely recommend this one.

Laura Anne Gilman returns us to the magical New York of her Retrievers series - a world in which there are Talents - individuals who can manipulate 'current' (electrical energy) to perform magic. Hard Magic takes a step back in time as we see how Bonnie, a 20-something, paranormal investigator and eventual next door neighbor to Wren, gets her start in the investigating biz.

I did enjoy Hard Magic though as a series starter there are some growing pains. The mystery - an apparent dual suicide with no mundane evidence of murder - takes a backseat to teambuilding and Forensic Magic 101, as Gilman sets the stage and introduces the cast. Bonnie is as interesting and likable as she was in the Retrievers book - although she is a bit too much 'on the make' here for me, she pretty much considers every new character (male or female) as they're introduced as a potential bed partner - I hope Gilman tails back on this a bit.

Keeping the background story pretty lightweight, Gilman focuses her effort in character development. She manages to create distinct supporting players in Bonnie's powerful and intriguing bosses, Bonnie's mentor, and in Bonnie's many and varied teammates each with their various magical and personal strengths. And Gilman also spends some time starting to build the relationships between the team members of the fledgling agency.

Because of the ratings, I thought I'd enjoy this book more. But this was difficult for me to get through. It reminded me of Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampire series. But instead of following around a group of young vampires in training, we follow a group of young people in training who have magical talents. The main problem for me was I did not find any of the characters interesting. I tend to like characters with flaws, quirks or an interesting background. I did not find any of that here. Even the mystery or case they had to solve did not catch my interest. And worst of all, there wasn't any chemistry or sexual attraction between the main characters, Venec and Bonnie. The author kept mentioning that there was something between these two, but I never felt it. So this book did not work for me on any level. I ended up skimming the second half of the book. Not a good sign. So I guess I won't be reading any more in this series.

I was initially disappointed that this waswn't a retreiver story. I guess that the last book which read like the end of the series truly was.

However, this a great start to a new series set in the same universe - a New York that is similar to ours except that magic works for some talented individuals. The magic users called Talents are either Council or Lonejacks. The main differencde being Council follow the Councils rules (and are helped by Council members) and Lonejacks just want to be left alone.

This is the beginning of a new type of worker, a PUPI,(private, unaffliated, paranormal investigations), basically CSI using magic, This is the story of how they got started.

Basically two friends, one Council, one Lonejack, decide to start the business to investigate crimes done by talent on talent. The ones that can't be solved by the regular police since they don't believe in magic and won't be solved by the Council for political reasons. They hire 5 young talents to be the investigators.

This is a story of how 7 people become a team. The dog jokes get to be a bit tedious (PUPI = puppy), unless the reader is truly a dog person. However, this is a minor flaw.

THis is very obviously the first in a series. I am looking forward to the next one. I also wonder whether Ms. Gilman will continue with Bonnie as the voice of the story or will switch to one of the other puppies.....

When you read as much as I do sometimes stories can all start to blend together. This is especially true with novels of the paranormal. It seems as if every author is writing stories about vampires, werewolves and the ditzy girls who love them. I find myself desperately wishing for something new. Hard Magic made me sit up and pay attention. Finally, a paranormal novel that isn't about tragic love or alpha males who have to swoop in and save the poor tragic heroine ten times per chapter!
I loved Bonnie and the other members of PUPI. I was a little put off with Bonnie's situation with her mentor. I wish that Gilman had found a way to allow Bonnie to take care of herself instead of having her mooch off of J for most of the book. It would have been easier for me to see her as a strong young woman if she had been struggling to support herself instead of living in the lap of luxury on J's dime. Despite this one little downfall (which is just my own personal opinion and may not be a downfall for other readers) I loved this book. Read it!

I've mentioned before in previous reviews of mine that Urban fantasy is a genre that I find hit or miss. Certainly its popular, authors are doing well cranking them up, but many urban fantasy novels feel like either romance novels with not well worked out paranormal elements, or feel like they are bandwagoners trying to get in on a hot sub-genre. And, I generally like my landscapes more fantastic and bigger. But I am willing to dip into the sub-genre now and again, if for no other reason than to keep abreast of how it is evolving.

Laura Anne Gilman is an author whose work I have not read before, but she has popped up in mentions of blog posts and social media by authors I have varying levels of contact and friendship with. So, I was delighted to enter and win a contest for a copy (signed as it turns out) of one of her books: Hard Magic

Hard Magic starts a new novel in her "Cosa Nostradamus" universe. Seven books in, there is not a lot of explanation of how the universe works, but clues in the book provided by good writing from Gilman allowed me to piece together that Hard Magic and its previous novels are set in a modern-day urban fantasy universe where magicians, and nonhuman races ("fatae") secretly live in a world ignorant of their presence. A major organized faction of practitioners (Talents), called the Council, try to organize the magical community. Opposing them are lonejacks, who are talents who try and make their own, anarchic way in keeping their powers secret and doing the business of making a living.

Bonnie Torres, a character who had appeared as a minor character in previous Cosa Nostradamus books, gets center stage in Hard Magic. With a Council patron, and a lonejack sort of independence, she nicely encapsulates the dichotomy between these factions as she tries to make a living in NYC.

When Bonnie gets a call to attend a job interview she never applied for, she is soon sucked into PUPI--Private Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigations. She joins a number of other misfit Talents similarly recruited, and together learn to harness their powers for magical forensics.

Oh, and of course, they DO get a case, investigate the strange suicide of a prominent pair of Council members that may very well be something more than a suicide. And in the process, Bonnie and her new friends stir up a number of very dangerous hornets nests in the process...

As an expatriate New Yorker, I felt like a slice of home reading this book, as, with the exception of a few teleports to Boston and Chicago, the entirety of the book takes place in New York City. From jokes about the GWB to pumpernickel bagels, Gilman brings forth the spirit of New York. Bonnie is clearly not a native, and we get a sense of her trying to understand the city, like a cat, has decided to adopt her. Unlike some urban fantasy that I have read, the setting is in harmony with the fantastic elements and they work together (much like, say, Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron).

The central mystery is a fair one by the standards of the universe. More than the mystery, though, the writing and the text show that Gilman is even more interested in exploring the characters. While we only follow Bonnie's point of view and her mind, Gilman does allow us to slowly reveal aspects of her employers and fellow employees. By the end of the book, we have a good handle not only on Bonnie but also her evolving relationships with PUPI, and her mentor J as well.

The advantage for Gilman to start a new series within her Cosa Nostradamus universe is that it provides a new entry point for people wanting to explore a new urban fantasy universe. If you are looking to try some urban fantasy, or more especially if you are a urban fantasy junkie, I recommend you give Bonnie Torres and the PUPI investigators a try.

Bonnie, a recent college grad, comes from a very unique background. She was raised in two different worlds and this makes her a little different from everyone else. She's having a terrible time trying to find a job because of this. But then one day, a mysterious phone call changes everything. She finds herself mixed up in a group on the cutting edge of magical forensics. It's up the her and the team to set out and prove their worth in order to keep their jobs, all the while dodging someone's sabotaging efforts. Not everyone wants magic to be policed and if they aren't careful they stand to lose a lot more than just their jobs.


Bonnie is a really interesting character. Her birth father was a lonejack, an unorganized magic user, and her mentor/adopted father is a full fledged member of the council, the organized side of magic. This makes her very unique as she comes from "both sides of the river." In this book lonejacks and council just do not understand the other, but Bonnie does, and this is a rare talent. She also has amazing mental recall which makes her really good at capturing a scene. She also is bisexual, which isn't a problem in itself. However every time she meets someone she spends a long time in her head analyzing her attraction to the person, and that got old after a while.


The most enjoyable part of the book was the characters themselves. The team is comprised of individuals that could not be any more different. But somehow they all blend together to work great together. Don't get me wrong, in the beginning it was rough until they learned to play well together, but as time went on you could really see why the boss men picked each of them. Speaking of the boss men, the lone jack of the two, Vasic was really intriguing. I enjoyed the slight sexual tension between him and Bonnie and I'm eager to see whether it is just one sided or mutual.


This book really had a lot of potential for me, but it ultimately fell short. While the premise behind the book was intriguing and original, the book was paced incredibly slow at times, making it hard to stay focused. It became confusing at times because I just couldn't keep my interest in it enough to really pay attention to the fine details. That being said, I think the series could really pick in future books as the world has been fully established. I enjoyed the characters and their interactions with each other, so hopefully the next book will pick up the pace and make it a really enjoyable book. I'm rating this one a generous three butterflies based on the potential of the series.

Hard Magic (Luna Books)
I am impressed. This year seems to be full of amazing beginnings to new series and Hard Magic is no exception. Each of the characters are unique and imperfect which is something I love because it means that not only is there room for the characters to grow in future novels but they are characters I can relate to more and hopefully you will feel the same. This series is a spin-off of the Retrievers books Staying Dead, Curse the Dark, Bring it on, Burning Bridges, etc. but don't expect a retriever novel. This novel is amazing and something entirely new. Take it as it comes and you are sure to enjoy it!

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Let's start with the good points. The protagonist, Bonita Torres, is a character that shows herself to be multi-faceted and a potentially very interesting heroine. The story is nicely paced, with sufficient action to keep the run-of-the-mill reader interested, but also a lot of development for the primary character and the setting in general (and it doesn't feel overly labored, like such development sometimes can). The beginnings of relationships are described, but for the most part aren't rushed. The supporting cast has a lot of potential to make things interesting, and despite the P.U.P.I. moniker, the author shows that she can and will tackle more serious issues as needed. All in all, this was a great book for setting up a new series.

There were a couple of issues (and one that might become an issue), but they weren't big enough to not make me look forward to the next book. One, even though I like the fact that the character is fairly open and honest about her sexuality, I didn't like how she seems to be instantly attracted to people in ways above and beyond just finding them appealing. It's as if the main character can't see an attractive male character without having a five-minute conversation in her head about how "drawn" she is to him.

Also, the character is quite obviously (or so stated) in the middle of the sexual orientation scale, being interested in both men and women. This is the part that might become an issue, not because I disapprove (quite the contrary) but because I get this feeling that Bonita's interest in women might wind up being used as just a dig to get people more interested in her, but then won't actually factor into the story at all. I call this the Fox Entertainment effect, where a character's sexual preferences are "non traditional" during sweeps weeks, but then they go straight again once they've got people hooked.

But in the end, one of the best compliments a reader can give to an author is that he/she was left wanting more, and that's what happened here.