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Kelley Armstrong, Angelic (Subterranean Press 2009)
If I ever find myself magically transported into a realm where demons, angels, ghosts and other critters walk the streets of the modern world, I want it to be Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld, the setting for Angelic. Sure, the streets are crowded with supernatural beasties of all types, but the demons don't seem to be such bad guys, the ghosts get to go on vacation and dress up like pirates, and horrifying psychic assaults can get shrugged off in a matter of minutes. It is, for lack of a better word, a friendly setting, where the stakes may be high but the risks feel low, and the happy ending is more important than the journey that gets the reader there. Angelic is narrated by one of Armstrong's recurring characters in the setting, deceased half-demon dark witch Eve Levine, who now splits her afterlife time between working as an angelic bounty hunter for the Fates and bopping around the afterlife with her hunky deceased lawyer boyfriend Kristof. The Fates have been getting on her case because she's a rebel who does things her own way, so when they forcibly postpone her vacation (yes, dead people take vacations, and dress up like pirates when they do so. Seriously. It's in there) to send her after some rebellious djinni, she starts plotting for ways to get out of her deal. The strongest characteristic of the Otherworld is how nice it is to Eve. Everyone -- including demons -- thinks she's cool and loves having her stop by. Even Cerberus likes having her scritch it behind the ears. No matter the situation, she has the spell or magical doodad necessary to get through at her fingertips. And when something does go wrong and she's ambushed in a scene that couldhave been quite powerful, she instead gets off scot-free a few pages later, with an apology from the demon responsible. Moreover, the fact that Eve does stuff is more important than how she does it. The fight scenes are barely sketched at all. Magical items are brought out without detail or explanation; it's enough that they get the job done and that the reader knows that they're magical. And so it goes. All of which is to say that if you're looking for a traditional fantasy reading experience, or even a traditional urban fantasy like Borderlands or The Gypsy, you're not going to find it here. Angelic, on the other hand, is all about the heroine being cool, doing cool stuff, having cool friends, and coming out on top in the end with nary a scratch. More importantly, it's about her driving the action and the conversation, so that when she does have her final reckoning with the Fates, it's about what she's decided she needs to do, as opposed to anything imposed from the outside. So, if that's what you're looking for -- a fun but ultimately safe ride -- you could do a lot worse. Whatever other flaws it might or might not have, based on your expectations, it remains fun, with enough depth of the setting hinted at that folks looking for something deeper or darker just might find reason to check out the other Otherworld books after all.
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