Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another good installment in the series, July 7, 2009
I loved The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss, Book 1), and was eagerly looking forward to the sequel. (Has it really only been a year?) I'm happy to report that _Darkness Calls_ is a worthy successor. This time around, Maxine and her boyfriend Grant are being hounded by a mysterious group of religious fanatics and by a horrifically creepy being who introduces himself as "Mr. Erl King," a name that will probably be familiar to myth-geeks like me. Seriously, this is one icky villain. I'm feeling nauseous right now, just remembering some of his scenes.
*shudder*
Anyway, like _The Iron Hunt_, _Darkness Calls_ features lots of action, some humor, quirky secondary characters, and plenty of nods to mythology and folklore. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Around the middle of the novel, I got briefly bogged down because I was a little confused about what was going on. Part of this was almost certainly my own fault. I didn't reread _The Iron Hunt_ before starting _Darkness Calls_, and I'd forgotten some of the terminology and some of the world-building, which meant I couldn't always remember who belonged to what supernatural faction and who was trying to kill whom for what reason. Another aspect of the confusion was intentional. Maxine herself doesn't understand everything that's going on, especially not at first. The attempts on her and Grant's lives keep her running and fighting 24/7. When she does have the chance to take a breath and have a deep conversation, the "wise old sage" characters in her life are often more cryptic than helpful.
This feeling of confusion passed quickly, though. I was captivated by the events leading up to Maxine's showdown with the Erl King. The climactic scenes are harrowing and highly emotional. As an added bonus, there are a few more Labyrinth scenes and mystic-vision scenes. These are where Liu's prose and the epic scope of her imagination really shine.
Another thing that was done really, really well: the romance between Maxine and Grant. In _The Iron Hunt_, Grant was almost background. Maxine was dealing largely with her own personal demons (real and metaphorical). Here, Grant is an integral part of the plot, and so is the relationship between him and Maxine. Many urban fantasy series focus on the formation of new relationships, or on the dramatic turmoil of relationships in crisis. What Liu depicts is rarer in the genre: a long-term relationship that works. Maxine and Grant face tons of problems, but you get the sense that their love and commitment are a match for whatever comes their way.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not great, July 14, 2009
I was eagerly waiting this and was honestly slightly disappointed from the first page. She was in the main characters head a little to much for me and it was distracting. I had flash backs to Anita Blake and her angst driven moments that seemed to last for pages.
I do like her world building and the fact that the main character is "human" and not all powerful. She loves and wants to love, opposite of most super women today.
Will I buy the next one? Yes, without a doubt
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Something missing..., August 20, 2009
The second book of Liu's Hunter Kiss series continues Maxine's struggle to fulfill her duty as a Hunter or Warden by hunting the demons that escape their prison, which exists in a different dimension, and by protecting the barrier or veil that separates our world from said prison. Her powers develop, her relationships deepen and increase in complexity, both of which leave Maxine with more questions than answers.
I found many scenes and descriptions beautifully and powerfully written. The action sequences were described well, so that Maxine's preternatural speed and the visceral nature of her battles were captured in a smooth way. Her relationship with Grant was a tale of love without being trite, and the depth of emotion between Maxine and Grant (and developing emotion between Maxine and others) was often well-expressed with minimalist, significant phrasing. I think Liu's imagination is very creative, and she creates a distinctive, powerful heroine who faces a complex evil.
For me, however, I think something was lost between the integration of Liu's powerful expressions and the plot. The basic plot of Maxine's new fight against supernatural beings called Avatars (rather than her original calling to fight against the demons), is continued from the first book, and introduces more about the Avatars and why they need to be stopped. The complicated nature of the Avatars along with the strange development of Maxine's powers, however, left too many questions open. Although that's necessary for future books in the series, I think enough questions were left open or simply not addressed at all that the reader was left confused by the resolution at the end of the book. This may be a technique that reflects the strong link of the reader's perspective to Maxine's; Liu links the reader so tightly with Maxine's perspective that the reader rarely knows more than Maxine knows, and Maxine's self-analysis of her emotions overwhelms the plot. While Maxine's emotional development was well-treated, it is at the sacrifice of having a more developed enemy--40 more pages of Mr. King, the new evil, and Jack, her mysterious grandfather, would have gone a long way in smoothing everything out. Though Mr. King seems to cause great evil and trouble, we hardly read about it happening as Maxine dimension-hops all over the world, then the end of the book rushes up suddenly, forcing the book to be resolved with magical dei ex machinae and supernatural epiphanies. Some of the new characters, Father Lawrence, Killy, and Byron, are initially introduced to move the plot along, but are ultimately too underdeveloped serving only as catalysts for Maxine's emotional reaction and self-analysis.
Although I think this particular book failed to meet the potential that Liu's characters and world have, I will continue reading the series in the hopes that my questions are answered, and I will continue reading Liu's other books because she is a talented writer.
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