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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
104 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful debut novel---highly recommended!,
This review is from: Urban Shaman (The Walker Papers, Book 1) (Paperback)
Joanne Walker, born Siobban Walkingstick, is returning to Seattle from her Mother's funeral in Ireland. On the plane home, as pilots are making a final pass into the city, she sees a woman being attacked at a church.
Everyone thinks she's crazy. Heck, even she thinks she's crazy, but she's compelled to help this woman. So, she hires a cab and sets out to find trouble in the bad side of town.... That opens the story of Joanne Walker, mechanic-cop for the Seattle PD. In "Urban Shaman" Joanne must quickly learn to accept and adapt to the new powers she has--because lives depend on her. "Urban Shaman" is a quick read and a good one. I strongly recommend you get into this series. Trust me, if you enjoy Kim Harrison, Jim Butcher and other novels of this type, you will be catching up when the others come out!
83 of 92 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Picture 4th Season Buffy and you will have the feel of this novel.,
By
This review is from: Urban Shaman (The Walker Papers, Book 1) (Paperback)
The author has such a great idea for a story and she is so wonderfully descriptive in her writing that I enjoyed it even though it has many glaring content mistakes. Some of the reviewers were disappointed because they were sold the book as a "Paranormal Romance" and they didn't get any sex scenes, but Amazon sold it to me as a "Native Mystery" along side the Jim Chee and the Charlie Moon series and that's the way I viewed.
The Positive: There's a fun, vibrant, feel to the way Jo and her battles are written as she tries to save a Marie and the rest of Seattle from Cernunnuos and his Wild Hunt gone wrong; while she's also dealing with her knew found abilities, and some inner pain that she hides even from herself. The Negative: The author seems to have only a Hollywood Movie understanding of Police work and less than that of the Seattle PD, Police Hiring Practices, Criminal Procedure, Police Language and less about Police Culture. This is a problem when your main character is supposed to be a Police Officer. The author seemed to have almost NO knowledge of the Qualla Boundary, the place her main character grew up. The character graduated from a Tribal run High School, NOT a BIA school, that prides itself on ALL of its students having a rudimentary understanding of the Peoples' culture, history, and language. In the main character's home town the street signs are in English AND Cherokee and the kids at her alma mater play Stick Ball most days that the weather allows, yet growing up in this environment she had not even a tourists knowledge of the name of the community or the culture? These mistakes caused problems in the way characters related to each other and distracted from, an other wise, good story. This author shows so much promise because even with those bright beacons distracting me, I still enjoyed the novel! Ms. Murphy, PLEASE use a content editor for future stories you are too good a writer to have these mistakes in your books.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
By fireandfog "fireandfog" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Urban Shaman (The Walker Papers, Book 1) (Paperback)
A brief description: CE Murphy's new book "Urban Shaman" tells the story of Joanne Walker, the daughter of a Native American and an Irish woman. Joanne is flying back from Ireland after her mother's funeral, and from the plane as it circles Seattle, spots a woman running away from an attacker. Joanne feels compelled to help the woman, and by doing so, becomes involved in an exciting and fast-paced adventure involving being chased by the Wild Hunt and ancient Celtic gods, and coming to terms with her newly emerged status as a powerful Native American shaman.
I can usually finish a book of this length in a day or two, depending on my available time and level of fatigue after a day at work. It took me about three or four days to finish this book, because I kept putting it aside, pondering what I knew of the subject matter (Native American and Celtic mythologies) against what I was reading, and then just deciding to tackle it all another day. That makes me sound sort of cynical and dismissive, which is not exactly true, but the truth is, I started off thinking this was going to be a really terrific book and ended by being confused and disappointed. This is not to say the book was bad - it wasn't. The basic idea behind this book is exciting and interesting, and I did enjoy much of it. It is very atmospheric, and the descriptions of places, people and events were terrific. I could really "see" everything that was happening. The part where Joanne meets the dead shamans in the star field is lovely, very nicely done. The action sequences are good (if confusing later in the book). There are also parts of the story that are quite well done in terms of relating the sense of suspense and terror. I even found myself a bit nervous after reading certain passages while at home alone late one night. That said, I think this book could have used the services of a good editor. Obviously the author has a terrific idea for a series, but she could use some assistance in tying various ideas together, fully explaining the reasons why things happen (why exactly again did all those people die?) and removing various unneeded motifs or plot devices (it's not like Joanne didn't get any sleep - I routinely function on less). First of all, I felt that maybe Ms. Murphy had perhaps not adequately researched her subject matter, or of she did, then events and back story were deliberately left overly vague and ill-defined. There is a telling section of the book where the main character, Joanne, attempts to research the Wild Hunt by looking it up on the internet. Joanne states that internet sources are iffy and you just have to go with the information that is repeated in several sources. I have to say that perhaps contacting a scholar in these fields (the story is set in Seattle, which has a world-class university) or reviewing books and articles written by scholars in these fields is also a valid way to go. It's not clear to me that the author herself did much more than researching iffy internet sources. I say this because there was just not enough information provided about the Wild Hunt or about Native American religion, but just enough that the final reason given for all the goings-on in the book just seems ridiculous. A lot of books and movies of this type have the hero or heroine visit an expert (who usually later suffers a horrible fate) to get the low-down in order to explain what's happening to the audience. It's a cliche, sure, but one that works better than Joanne's net-surfing. I mean, after all, if the Wild Hunt is chasing you, aren't you going to try to get the real low-down on who they are and what they want, or are you going to take your chances on someone's GeoCities website? Another reviewer states that even an explanatory phone call from Joanne's father would have helped so much, and that's a statement I agree with. Similarly, Joanne's newly acquired abilities to psychically thrash a powerful Celtic god are not well-explained, and these sections of the book therefore take on an Anita Blake quality; somehow the heroine conveniently acquires supernatural power just when it's needed, but it's not well-explained why or how. When Coyote tells Joanne that "The Old Man" made her brand-new (i.e., a brand new soul never reincarnated) for this purpose, it makes me wonder why in the world the Celtic god Cernunnos would care in the least about "The Old Man." A confrontation would have been interesting, but then, maybe that smacked too much of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" or Peter Beagle's "The Folk of the Air." (Speaking of Peter Beagle, read "Tamsin" for a lovely take on the Wild Hunt.)
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