The first seventy percent or so of Into the Woods collects a number of stories set in Kim Harrison's Hollows world. One of them, Million Dollar Baby, the story of Trent's elf-quest told from his point of view, is new to this collection. The others are reprints, collected from other sources.
The Hollows stories gave me a deeper, better understanding of characters I thought I knew pretty well. They do exactly what you most hope an ancillary short story or novella will - enrich and enhance your understanding of the books, take nothing away, spoil nothing. I finished these stories impressed by Kim Harrison's craft.
The Bespelled: the story of how Al takes Ceridwen as his familiar, from Al's POV. Mostly interesting for the hints of honest affection Al feels towards Ceri.
Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel: Novella-length story about Rachel summoning Pierce as a teenager. I was never a Pierce fan, so I could take or leave his presence in any story. But the insight into Rachel as a teenager was really fantastic. She's in the process of applying to work at the I.S., still struggling to overcome the effects of her childhood illness, and we get a really clear picture of how her character was formed, why she became the Rachel Morgan we all know and love. Neat.
Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil: Novella-length story with Ivy as the POV character.This one started out really, really slow for me. I love Ivy, but her intense angst can be exhausting (view spoiler). The story picked up for me with the arrival of a banshee subplot and finished strong, with a great explanation of how Ivy ended up as Rachel's partner at the beginning of DEAD WITCH WALKING. I ended up really enjoying this novella.
Dirty Magic: brief story about Mia, the banshee. Fun, short, with a great twist. Especially enjoyed Harrison's intro at the beginning, where she explains how she re-imagined banshees as "apex predators".
The Bridges of Eden Park: Short interlude with Rachel and Kisten and a little action to liven things up. In her intro, Kim Harrison describes this story as a farewell to Kisten and we really see him at his best - troubled but solid, sweet but strong. It's been a long time since I missed Kisten, but this story is wonderfully bittersweet.
Ley Line Drifter: longer short story/not-quite-novella about Jenks taking a case on his own. In so many ways, Jenks is the heart and soul of all the Hollows books and reading a story from his perspective is heartwarming and heartbreaking. He's such a family man, he takes pride in such little things - teaching his children to read, for example - and seeing his happiness with Matalina, and how badly he wants her to live, might bring a tear to your eye (it did to mine). I'd love it if Kim Harrison did a whole spinoff series from a pixy's perspective - maybe one of Jenks' kids?
Million Dollar Baby: Trent's elf-quest with Jenks. Story is made of awesome because Jenks' proximity to Trent naturally results in many hilarious expletives involving Tinkerbell's privates. But, in all seriousness, this story catches Trent at a turning point in his life. If we're only going to get one peek into Trent's mind, this is the one to have.
Reading the stories set outside of the Hollows world reminded me a lot of the first time I started Dead Witch Walking - I hated it. In fact, I set it aside unfinished for quite a while before, in a bored moment, I picked it up again, finished the novel, and became completely enthralled &, of course, now I pre-order every new Hollows book the second Amazon throws up the button.
Something about the way that Kim Harrison starts a story just doesn't capture me. In these non-Hollows stories, I found the initial chapters off-putting...but by the time the novellas were done, I was ready to keep reading, and I was disappointed that they couldn't continue. I especially enjoyed Pet Shop Boys and Grace. Temson Estates and Spider Web didn't quite capture me.
Pet Shop Boys: shortish novella set in a world featuring a vampire/fairy hybrid species. Starts off a little slow, with a hapless guy who gets caught up in events he doesn't understand, but by the end I was wishing I had a whole novel to read instead of just a short.
Temson Estates: Another short, only a few chapters long. This one's about a young man who inherits a forest. He plans on having the trees cut to finance his graduate studies, until he discovers there are dryads in the trees. The mythology is interesting but the story itself is very rushed, the characters thinly drawn, and there's a fair bit of infodumping. Could be interesting if it were worked into a proper story, but it's not.
Spider Web: A novella about three generations of women - grandmother, mother, two young girls - who live on a property inhabited by a dangerous forest spirit. Intergenerational squabbling leaves the women vulnerable to the spirit's manipulations. The story just didn't work for me; Harrison's descriptions of the farm and woods were incredible, and while the trials and strained relationships among the characters felt real to me, the characters themselves didn't stand out as interesting or unique.
Grace: Urban fantasy novella about a special subset of the population who can "throw" electricity, for purposes as varied as blowing out lights to re-starting hearts. The throws themselves are either drafted into a government organization or "deadheaded", stripped of their abilities. The heroine, Grace, has stalled in her career because she's so good at what she does that nobody wants to promote her up the line. Her job is to collect unregistered throws; in this case, the target is older, with a fair amount of control over his ability, and absolutely does not want to be forced to tow the party line. There's a subplot involving an ex who moved up in the ranks faster than Grace, and another about her aging partner.
I received a free copy of Into the Woods from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review
