Customer Reviews

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels)

5 star:		(135)
4 star:		(84)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

This is one of the best-realized fantasy worlds I've encountered in a debut novel. Our heroine, Kate, lives in an alternate Atlanta, where magic and technology come in unpredictable waves. When her guardian is killed, she seeks out the murderer using some hilarious concepts of investigation.

If you are a paranormal romance reader, this book may not be for you. Despite its title, "Magic Bites" falls strongly on the fantasy end of the continuum. "Magic Bites" is both a very good fantasy and mystery and you can get easily drawn in--as long as you are not too disappointed there is not a strong romance line in the novel.

Another warning, if you are someone who thinks vampires are dead sexy, this book does not ascribe to this point of view. Vampires are nobody's erotic fantasy in this novel and that makes them particularly interesting.

World building is critical to the fantasy genre and Ms. Andrews has earned a 5 star rating just for that. The rules for her world are pretty clear and she sticks to them. She's obviously carefully considered the eventualities of phases where magic and technology rule the city and keeps things interesting with the changes she puts her characters through.

Kate is a well-realized and interesting character. She's someone you can empathize with and she's got a pretty darn good sense of humor. I see shades of Raymond Chandler in this book in the humor.

Also, Andrews resolves her mystery in this book, but leaves you with enough questions to want to read her next novel in this series. I, for one, hope the novel comes soon, but I think she will be well worth the wait.

Kate Daniels lives in a world in which magic fluctuations are an everyday occurrence. In fact, she makes her living off of these disruptions. However, her world is turned upside down when a vampire delivers a message about her guardian. Kate agrees to work for the Order to avenge the death of her guardian and soon finds herself in the midst of an ongoing conflict between the two major supernatural groups, the People and the Pack. Kate is in for some unpleasant surprises as she delves deeply into Atlanta's magical world.

MAGIC BITES is what urban fantasy is all about! Ilona Andrews has written a tale that is not for the faint of heart as she is not afraid to take risks. There is little, if any, romance in this tale and the gore level is high. However, it is the phenomenal world building that makes MAGIC BITES such a success. Ilona Andrews takes a darker approach to vampires and shape shifters and the complexity of her world is astounding.

Kate Daniels is a great lead female character. She is the ultimate action heroine as she charges right into the thick of things. She is a bit brusque at times but Ilona Andrews does an excellent job at making Kate likeable in spite of her attitude. There is also a bit of a mystery surrounding Kate as tantalizing hints are dropped throughout the novel.

MAGIC BITES is a welcome entry to the urban fantasy genre. It is easy to forget that this is a first novel by Ilona Andrews as the tale is so well done. I can't wait for the sequel as MAGIC BITES is easily recommended!

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

Usually in fantasy books magic is a force within a person to be used, good or bad, at will. In this book it's an exterior force that is fighting, and winning, against technology, but also useable by those who know how. Usually werewolves are depicted as aloof creatures involved in their own pack lives; the top of the shape-shifting hierarchy. In this book they are just one of many shape-shifters all living in The Pack, led by a fierce were-lion. Usually vampires are dark and dangerous, powerful, totally amoral blood-thirsty creatures, flashy dressers and sexy, to the non-vamp, as all get out. These vampires, most not even creatures of their own volitions, take the Nosferatu model and degenerate it even more. Ugly, near-skeletal monsters who give true meaning to the term "undead" controlled by Masters of the Dead.

This is the world that Kate, a magic-using mercenary, lives, in the former vibrant, now crumbling under the onslaught of magic, city of Atlanta Georgia. One of these "undead" creatures visits her, and through its master finds out that her mentor/father figure has been murdered. With the unofficial blessing of The Guild, the official fighters against evil magic, she sets out to investigate the murder.

"Magic Bites" is an excellent read. It's fast-paced and all the characters are interesting, regardless of how "fantastic". There's almost a romance, but it takes a big hit along the way. I'm hopeful in later books that Kate, who really keeps her emotions under tight control, can repair the nacent relationship, for her own sake, if nothing else.

Unlike some books which reveal everything in the first volumn, this book leaves many things to learn in future stories, including the mystery of Kate herself.

Ilona Andrews is a skilled writer and this is a competent first novel. The main character, Kate, is one of those tough female protagonists who is very good at fighting, somehow never has enough money, and occasionally manages to piss off everyone around her. This is a detective story set in a supernatural future Atlanta with were beasts, vampires, and magic users. There are a few aspects to the story that bothered me:

(a) Why make the bad guy so completely nasty? There is a lot of gratuitous ugliness (rape, cannibalism, many dead bodies) in the story that does nothing to strengthen the plot.

(b) Men whose actions are ruled by excess testosterone come off as idiots in my book. Kate has a serious case of testosterone poisoning. Why go around picking fights with every other character in the book? A male character would look stupid with such behavior, and I am afraid Kate looks dumb when she behaves that way.

(c) There is an important fight between Kate and a female character that is central to the story. Kate should find the whole thing very traumatic, but she just cruises through the action. I think the book could be improved if the author took more care to show us how the action affected Kate in this scene and similarly improved the characterization in a few other emotionally charged scenes.

I would recommend the book, but only if you have a high tolerance for violence and gore.

Ok, when I started this book, I thought: Man, this has it all! Mystery, magic beasts, spikes of dark magic, great fight scenes, and a main character I can like and appreciate.

In all honesty, I wasn't wrong. The book delivered on all of those aspects, and kept me reading. I wasn't on the edge of my seat, but I wanted to see what would happen in the end.

Instead of picking up steam however, the closer I got to the end, the more the plot dragged. I became sick of never really seeing who the true culprit was. I always thought that would be the end of the book, but it never was. It just seemed to go on and on.

I finally had to put it down about a chapter and a half before the end. After all of that. All the plot twists, characters and wild magic things had my head spinning, and at the end I just didn't care anymore.

I was disappointed. For a book that started off so well it became cumbersome and anti-climatic. Three stars.

First off, I am now a big Kate Daniels fan. Second, it was a rocky start for me.

Kate Daniels lives in a alternate futuristic Atlanta. We learn later in the series that the year is 2040 (only after doing math with a few of the markers given us.) In this world, magic and technology come and go in waves. During a Magic Wave, you will see banshees outside your window, large monsters coming out of the sewers, and all sorts of mayhem. During a Technology Wave, telephones work, cars function, and you can even watch a movie. Kate works for a Mercenary Guild doing what work comes her way. When she finds out her estranged legal guardian has been killed, Kate goes on the offensive to get details and kill whoever did this. Along the way, Kate goes from a 'No-Name Merc' to the appointed representative by the legal forces that be to solve this case, putting her in the big leagues playing along side the Pack (shapeshifers) and the People (Vampires.)

What I liked:
1. Kate--a lot of reviewers didn't like Kate, and I can see why. Me? I liked her. She is fiercely independent, but insecure on the inside so she puts on a front. She's never had friends (you find out why in later books) but is incredibly loyal. She is pretty snarky in her inter-thoughts.
2. Choice--I love how in this world, everyone still has their free agency. In so many other Urban Fantasy books, the "werewolves" MUST obey their leader. They physically and mentally can do nothing other than what their leader commands them. Here? It is a choice. Shifters can either choose to join a pack or not. They can defy their leader if they want....it might be the last thing they do, but they can.
3. Family--Shifters have families....they have kids. It's not like because they are a shifter that they all the sudden are unable to procreate.
4. Death--that might sound weird, but I'm getting tired of the "Vampires live forever at the age they became undead" and "Werewolves are forever 25." In this world, Shifters are born (and created) and they live a long life (longer than others since they can heal easier than others), grow old, and then they die at a very old age. There is none of that "Eternal Life" crap here. Also, Vampires are really dead....a vampire is a dead body that is controlled and "navigated" by a necromancer. The person's soul/personality/thoughts/memories are all gone except the body. The body continues to "age" as a vampire.
5. Realistic Romance--Kate tries to date and it's not that "instant love" you see so often in books. Her attempts at dating in book 1 are interesting. The love interest that develops as the series progresses is done well showing 2 people who meet and actually get to know each other. Wow. What a concept.

What I didn't like:
1. Rather crude: This book has been described as "gritty." I'd have to agree. But it is also rather gory. There is a lot of crude language, horror not seen in movies, and bestiality. It seemed like the authors were trying too hard to say "Hey look at us, we're edgy and pushing the envelope." It was really rather over the top on the gore.
2. We never are told what Kate is: We know Kate has some power but we are never told what she is or what she can do. We get a few clues in Book 1, some strong hints in Book 2, and finally at the VERY end of book 3 she comes right out and says it.
3. A misunderstanding of characterization: At one point, Kate along with the pack realize what "thing" they need to be hunting. The Beast Lord immediately accuses Kate's current almost-boyfriend. They confront him and EVERYONE says it was Kate who is pointing the finger and Kate acts as if that was true. On first read, I thought it was a problem with editing. But it really ruined the book for me. On reading posts on the author's website, I found out that it was correct, and we were all supposed to understand that Kate felt guilty for going along with this and that the boyfriend reminds her of her guardian and so on. None of that is even remotely hinted at....I just figured the author couldn't keep her own facts straight.
4. Too much unsaid: Not only are we never told what Kate is, but so much of this new world is left unexplained.

Recommendation:
This is a much darker and "grittier" (i.e. crude and gory) universe than Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson universe ( Moon Called (Mercy Thompson)). I thought the first book was okay. It centers more around the action and magic. I was curious enough to pick up book 2 Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, Book 2) and enjoyed that one much better. The second really starts to develop the characters. Kate also softens and we start to get a glimpse behind the tough-girl exterior she puts on. It wasn't until book 3 Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, Book 3) that I really fell in love with this series. Book 3 is the best one of the series: It is full of great characters, hilarious exchanges, snarky inner-thoughts, great action, pasts revealed, and a relationship developed.

So, if you can get past the strong language and the horrors shown I recommend it just to get you started on a great series.

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1)
Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, Book 2)
Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, Book 3)
Magic Bleeds (Kate Daniels, Book 4)
Magic Slays (Kate Daniels) (Book 5 Due June 2011)

**UPDATE**
Just read book 4, and the series continues to get better and better. This series is one of my favorite now, even though it was a rocky start for me.

I tossed MAGIC BITES into my last Amazon order, mostly because of the Patricia Briggs quotes on both front and back covers as well as several positive blog reviews I'd read. One of the most fascinating things about this book is that the author's name, Ilona Andrews, is actually a combination of Ilona and Andrew Gordon's first names. They are the husband and wife team who create the Kate Daniels books. That is to say, together they come up with the characters and plot, then Ilona writes the book, and finally the two of them wrangle over editing/general clean-up. Awesome, no?

I have to say what I liked best about this first book is the crazy, psychedelic Atlanta it takes place in. This alternate city is saturated in daily waves of magic that doggedly eat away at any signs of civilization and/or technology. The city's skyscrapers are no more than dwindling piles of granite and steel. Magic and technology are basically anathema in this world and the inhabitants of Atlanta live a sort of refugee-type half life. Having adapted to the dark surges when the electricity and cars stop working and people take to horse-drawn carriages and camp stoves. During these times the supernatural rules and mere humans get by. It reminded me vaguely of the gritty, post apocalyptic world Robin McKinley created in Sunshine. The vampires share a few common characteristics as well, their extremely gruesome appearance being at the top of the list. It's nice to see someone else bucking the current beautiful and seductive trend. Not that I have anything against your run-of-the-mill sparkly vampire. It's just fun to see the ubercreepy version as well.

The reader is dropped into Kate Daniels' life without a by-your-leave. Being the somewhat cantankerous reader that I am, I like it when a book challenges me to keep up, grabs me by the throat, shakes me once, and says, "Immerse yourself or be left in the dust!" In this world where humans exist side by side with creatures straight out of mythology and nightmare, it was a treat to attempt to navigate it without having everything spoon fed to me. I like Kate. She does share some characteristics with Briggs' Mercy Thompson. She has a sense of humor and she ruthlessly guards her independence. Kate's a bit rougher around the edges than Mercy. She's had a rough past, undoubtedly, but one of the strokes of genius in this series is that the reader doesn't know what Kate is. We know she's something. But we don't know what. And Kate is determined not to tell anyone. Not even the reader. Oh, we'll find out eventually. But I'm all tingly with the mystery of Kate and her powers.

Magic Bites is jam-packed with all the things I love in urban fantasy. The heroine is a strong, mysterious young woman with life-threatening secrets to protect. This is hard to do though, while seeking revenge on whoever, or whatever murdered her mentor leaving her alone in the world. Her mentor left her a strange gift that may help, written in his own blood. Now, she must thread her way through a pack of powerful shapeshifters who may be protecting the suspects, aided by a young wolf she doesn't want anywhere near her and challenged every step of the way by their Alpha, a lion who is more than he seems.

If you dig Patricia Briggs, CT Adams and Cathy Clamp, Kelly Armstrong, or the Kitty and the Midnight Hour series.....you'll dig this book!!!!

There's a lot to like about this book. The world-building is excellent, and I like it that Kate had enough self-respect not to jump in bed with either potential boyfriend. However, I never cared very much about Kate or what happened to her. She constantly acts in very childish ways and often acts without thought to the consequences. She's somewhat redeemed by at least knowing she's acting childishly, but she also doesn't try to act more maturely. I'm also not attracted to a "heroine" who deals with depression (caused by consequences of her actions) by drinking herself into a stupor.

The writing was generally strong enough that I might have bought the second book in the series except that the ending just didn't do it for me. I knew who the unknown bad guy was from the moment we were first introduced to him. I accept that Kate didn't realize who it was, but I have a very hard time understanding why no one else did.

I also don't understand another part of the ending. **SPOILER ALERT** It's Curran who suggests that his rival for Kate's affection is the unknown enemy. Kate agrees that his reasons make sense, but she says she doesn't think he's the enemy and gives several reasons why. Curran decides to test the fellow anyway. I sort of assumed it was mainly to get rid of his rival. While the fellow is being tested, one of Curran's subordinates tells the boyfriend that this was all Kate's idea. Kate doesn't correct him and say, "no, it wasn't." When the boyfriend turns out to not be the enemy, Curran blames Kate for leading him wrong _when it was his own idea_ and Kate just accepts the blame. I was so confused by this that I went back to re-read the previous section just to make sure I was right, that Curran had been the one with the idea. Kate blew things with the boyfriend, no doubt about it, but I can't understand why she accepts blame for something she didn't do when that doesn't seem consistant with how she's acted before. I felt like the author changed the story mid-way and forgot to revise the previous part. **SPOILER END**

Since the rest of the ending was pretty predictable (including her getting drunkenly depressed), the book left me feeling confused and not wanting more. Obviously, most people didn't have the problems I did with the book, so go ahead and try the book if you're on the fence about getting it.

First, the things I LOVED about _Magic Bites_: the originality of the setting and how well the author filled in the details.

The setting is the Atlanta, Georgia area of the southeastern U.S., in a time only a few decades after today. Magic has come back to the world (for reasons unexplained in the book) and overcomes technology in waves. If there is a magic wave coming in, then internal combustion engines, light bulbs, and electricity don't work. But engines can run off of holy water, ley lines can have ferries attached to them for public transit, and there are things like light bulbs which run on magic. Telephones still work, but that's probably because most people don't know how they work anyway and consider them almost magical, so that collective belief keeps them working (sometimes) during magic waves.

And then a tech wave will come through, and most magic fails while the things we are used to (electricity, light bulbs, city buses, cars that run on gas) all come back to life.

That premise alone is really unique, and Andrews' interpretation of vampires and werewolves is great too. The process of becoming a vampire changes the body and brain of the vampire such that they are more like a ravenous insect than a human; in this state, vampires become tools for a group of necromancers who call themselves the People. Were-creatures become were-whatevers after being infected by the Lyc-V virus. If a lycanthrope eats human flesh, they become a creature running entirely on testosterone, adrenalin, appetite, and nastiness; therefore, all lycanthropes have banded into the Pack, which has very strict codes and hierarchies to help members maintain their self-discipline.

The civil authorities are still around, but have split into three groups: the police, the military, and a private religious order based on the old knightly orders of the Catholic church.

It makes for a book worth reading just to see the world the author has created, and the successive magic and tech waves keep things interesting and unpredictable.

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Now we get to the thing I disliked about _Magic Bites_: the main character, Kate Daniels.

Kate has an interesting and somewhat mysterious backstory (my guess is her biological father is Roland, but that's just a shot in the dark). We don't get to know much about her past history, except that she was raised by a nice couple and started training even as a child; her father is not her biological father; she can't let anyone get a sample of her blood (why she became a mercenary when she knew she had that concern is something I don't understand); and she enrolled in an academy run by the knightly order mentioned above and was judged to have an enormous amount of potential, but she quit because she has a problem with authority. As a way to make ends meet, she joined the mercenary guild and does all the stuff honorable mercenaries do -- get hired to be part of a crew chasing down a feral werewolf pack, bodyguard and protect who she is assigned to, etc.

There's an old family friend who continues to mentor her, and the story starts with her finding out he has been murdered. As Kate tries to find out how his murder is related to his work as a Knight-Diviner in the above-mentioned protective knightly order, it becomes very clear someone is trying to start a war between the necromancers and lycanthropes, and may have even larger plans beyond that. It's a bit formulaic, but at the same time it's fairly well done.

Throughout the story it's obvious Kate has a lot of talent and training in physical fighting (especially swords) and magic, and generally has a good head on her shoulders. Unfortunately, she has the chutzpah and mouth of an obnoxious teenager. Being a "born fighter" means someone is good at fighting and maybe enjoys it more than most people; it does NOT mean they feel compelled to mouth off and pick pointless and time-consuming fights with every possibly ally and enemy they run across. Seriously, how did she get to be this old and this experienced without SOMEONE teaching her how to keep her mouth shut??

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Lastly, I utterly loathed the incredible amount of detail spent on violence, gore and sadism. During the course of the book, we get to read about:
- Kate's memories of her third assignment as a mercenary, where she watched a blinded mother call for her child, while the child was swinging from a noose in the tree right above the mother.
- The bad guy describing to one of his rivals IN DETAIL how the bad guy kidnapped and violently raped a woman the rival had dinner with, just to show the rival how powerless he is to protect those he cares about.
- The bad guy telling Kate all about how many women he's raped in the hopes of siring a powerful son, and how he's looking forward to raping Kate because her bloodline is exactly what he's looking for.
- And there's LOTS more where that came from. You can read about the fundamentalist father who brought home the Lyc-V virus from a tent gathering, became a feral werewolf, and after his wife committed suicide he abused his three daughters so badly two of them died and only one of his sons stayed sane enough to find and join the Pack. Or you can read about whoever's head it was that got staked in Kate's yard. Or read about Kate meeting the oldest son of the bad guy, who is just animal enough he'll never be the heir his father wants him to be, just human enough to understand the unending tragedy of his existence, and just enough his father's son to really enjoy the torture his old man directs him to do. Or you can read about . . . never mind, you get the idea. Even for dark fantasy, this is really freaking DARK.

_Magic Bites_ would have been just as good with the blood and gore and sadism turned down to half or a third of what's in there now.

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So, I'd like to give the book five stars for the excellent premise, the work done filling in the backstory and details of characters, the excellent secondary characters, and the excellent observations about human nature that pop up. However, the excessive gore and violence and the immaturity of the main character drag it down to three stars.