Thursday, May 14, 2009

Gaysian's Daily Book Review!

I'm an avid reader. I spend copious amount of time and money consuming whatever unlucky novel that happens to fall into my hands. I'll read pretty much anything, but as a gay woman, I have a hard time finding novels that focus on queer women and that are also good (i.e. fun or well written). So I decided I would attempt to do a weekly novel review. I'm still hammering out details of how I'll go about this, after all I'm a vet student and not writer (as I'm sure you all must have noticed by my lack of blogging skills by now), but I do ultimately want to have a section of books to recommend (or not) and quick synopsis of their plots. So bear with me ladies as I work out the kinks. Now on to the reviews!

Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison. Released April, 2004



Since best selling novelist, Laurel K. Hamilton stepped into the scene a few years ago with her debut novel Guilty Pleasures she has since, if not created, but popularized a new literary genre, urban fantasy. I happen to be a fan of urban fantasy for a number of reasons. The books usually feature a strong, clever, and sexually confident heroine and I've found much to my delight a number of queer characters and a no-nonsense acceptance of nontraditional sexualities in these novels.

The book/author I'm about to recommend is the first in a continuing series, is Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison. The series is set in an alternate world where a worldwide pandemic caused by genetically modified tomatoes (they were carrying some sort of virus) led to the near extinction of a large portion of the world's human population. Since the human population had been reduced to the point where there was as many "Inderlanders" (witches, werewolves, vampires, etc.) as humans, who were unaffected by the virus the Inderlanders decided to reveal themselves to the world at large.

Rachel Morgan is an Inderlander, a witch (in the novel witches are considered a separate species, with different life spans and such) who works at the Inderland Security (I.S) as a runner (a sort of government employed bounty hunter) in a dead end job. However, no one leaves the I.S and when she attempts to get out of her work contract all sorts of hell breaks lose. Along the way she partner's up with Ivy, a badass bi-sexual vampire, partly of Asian decent who is also interested in leaving the I.S. This friendship plays a central role throughout the series, as Rachel isn't sure if Ivy wants to work with her or eat her and so their unlikely partnership begins.

While Rachel identifies as straight, the relationship between Ivy and Rachel continues to grow and evolve over the entirety of the series. Ivy is a much loved character of the series and plays a large role in a number of the novels. I won't lie, she's my favorite of series and I squeal in delight every time she does something awesome or scary (which is quite frequent). I highly recommend this novel. It's well written and a fun read. The stories are engaging and there are a slew of wonderful and interesting side characters that return in almost every subsequent novel. If you like fantasy, hot chicks, queer ladies, action, and a good dash of angst thrown in for fun then do yourself a favor and pick up this series!

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