Strong Woman, Strong Witch, Dangerous, Bad Boys ****Spoiler Potential****

For about the past month I have immersed myself in Kim Harrison's The Hollows, or The Rachel Morgan Series.  Much in the same way with all series, if I like a character, a storyline or a way of writing I will read straight through and be very agitated when I am done.  I miss those characters - maybe I think of them as friends or wish I were them.  I am not sure and refuse to pay for therapy when I could use the money to buy books.

So the Hollows series begins with the book Dead Witch Walking in a post-biological apocalyptic world that I have had a hard time placing in time.  In this world Napoleon used magic to win Waterloo and instead of the moon shot we had the Turn where supernatural races came out of the broom closet when humanity was hit by a virus from a genetically engineered tomato. Now 99.9% of humans are tomato terrified and the only places serving tomato-based foods like chili or pizza are in the Inderlander neighborhoods where all the supes (called Inderlanders) live.  And, talk about variety: Pixies, elves, fairies, Vampires (viral), demons, witches  and were-creatures -- there is probably something else lurking out there who knows.  Each species, it turns out, has quite a pedigree and each also has a neurosis of some type: hiding their origins, pretending they don't exist, hating another species because of some long forgotten disagreement - sounds as if they are all somewhat human. And, I just finished the most recent book Black Magic Sanction (Hurry up Kim!).

The Vampires are the hardest to understand and the hardest to fit in.  Vampirism is viral, so does not have the same truly supernatural origin as the other supes. But, it is the species most in power, after the humans, in this world.

So, Kim Harrison does a great job creating this universe -- and it is pretty darn consistent.  It is not caught up in language that is just annoying, or really strange behavior.  I think each species is a metaphor for some aspect of humanity; after all, that is one function of fantasy literature: it uses the created world to point stuff out about ours. It is easy to lose site of that when there is a lot of sex and people who have extra appendages and such, but by making it part of another species it brings something about us into relief without it being as threatening as directly pointing out a strength in our nature, or a flaw.


Harrison has done her research on different aspects of witch craft and other species.  One thing that is very cool is that different species have different scents. I asked her about that and the scents of the species is her invention.

But, what I think I really found attractive  about the series is that is has four main strong female characters, all of whom have a different brand of strength and a different set of struggles.  There is Rachel - about 26, a witch, kind, talented to a degree that has been hidden from her and with a genetic heritage that makes her unique in the world.  She lives with a "Living high-blood" Vampire, Ivy who Rachel loves but with whom she is not in love.  This is a problem as Ivy is IN love with Rachel, and would like her to be her permanent blood donor. Her s trength is in her ability to love and to overcome the training of her master vampire.  Ceri comes along several books into the series.  She is an ancient creature who has been kept captive in "Everafter" where demon-kind is forced to live. Her strength iss in her ability to use the forbidden in a primordially justifiable way. And, there is Rachel's apparently flighty, wacky, ditzy mom who turns out to be non of those things.


Rachel, as the focal character serves as both protagonist and antagonist  or, maybe it is her body that is her own worst enemy.  A witch with a heart of gold, a veritable magical, female Jack Bauer, she is constantly getting herself into deep doo doo trying to do the right thing, using methods that are not only supposedly not possible but anathema to her species understanding of itself. No good deed goes unpunished, right? She picks out the worst guys, except for one but he is like the old car in an action series (old car, cliff, big boom).

So, like all series, some of the volumes are stronger than others.  There is some sex but it is not there to carry the series as we often find (hey, let me punch this up with some sex).  When someone has sex it advances the story.

What is my point.  The women in these stories make mistakes, but they are good and try. Each learns about her strengths and shares that with the reader, sometimes it is Rachel learning it and shares it with us.

Give it a read, I think you will find it good quality Urban Fantasy and PNR and well worth your time.

Except for the first in the series, which was a free download onto Kindle, I purchased all of the series myself.  Book covers courtesy www.kimharrison.net