The Case for the Difficult Heroine, Part One

One thing paranormal opens up the possibility of, and that is a difficult, yet interesting heroine. Anita Blake is a good example of this – an interesting woman living a fascinating and dangerous life, yet not necessarily someone you’d want to be friends with. It can be dangerous to be close to someone with Anita’s job – with her life – and Anita isn’t sure she wants people too close to her. Then they become people-she-must-protect, dangerous to them and to her. She’s a private and prickly person, as well, and the in-your-face persona that keeps her alive and able to hunt vampires and raise the dead makes her quick to anger and quick to take offense – again, not a friend who would be easy to kick back with.

With paranormal heroines, we can have a capable woman struggling with “people she must protect” or one struggling with “protecting the world, and then people – some casualties are guaranteed.” I was reading a little of both the past couple of weeks. You can go check out my review of CAROUSEL TIDES for a heroine who returns to the only home she remembers fondly to protect a family responsibility that could endanger her family’s portion of the world. Now, let’s look at Kate Daniels of the MAGIC series written by Ilona Andrews, and Lise Brown from Lynn Abbey’s THE GUARDIANS which is back in print from Yard Dog Press.

Kate Daniels lives in what is basically a post-Apocalyptic world, only the Apocalypse was the return of Magic to the Earth. This means full-bore, Gods and monsters, weres-and-vampires-are-real-but-not-what-you-may-think-they-are magic. It hit the world in a flaming disaster that destroyed cities and slaughtered millions, warping others to the new master that was magic. We’re now into the era of Electricity versus Magic – rolling energy waves that take out the grid one moment, and then disappear the next. People with money have autos that run on gasoline and on magic. Most people have mules or horses or walk.

Roads are crumbling, skyscrapers collapse with each Magic flux, and wood is the new king of building materials, concrete and steel struggling to keep from completely dissolving under the magic onslaught. Raw power, whether magical or temporal, determines the new pecking order, and Kate Daniels is a mercenary for hire, taking out magical baddies with a sword that has a matte finish and drips sparks of metal and magic when her mood turns ugly.

Kate’s mother died young to protect her, and her stepfather gave up all his power and position to hide in the boonies and protect her from her biological father, a man so powerful most people cannot begin to comprehend his strength. A man so dangerous he is half-seen as legend, not real. A man who would kill her in an eye blink if he knew she existed. And he’s always mentioned as an aside – we don’t get much on him yet, because Kate avoids thinking about him.

Kate Daniels is strong, mouthy, and PTSD cold. Part of her job is keeping a roof over her head – part of it is becoming powerful enough to eventually challenge her father and destroy the magical empire he has built, an empire she despises. Eventually she has a couple of friends, but at the time of Magic Bites, the first novel, friends are few and she has just lost her guardian to murder. This man was a powerful knight of the Order of the Knights of Merciful Aid, the man who finished raising her after her stepfather’s death. She is determined to solve the mystery of the knight’s death, while keeping out of the way of the major power brokers of Atlanta, the largest city close to her home and where her guardian was based.

Those power brokers are The Pack, the united council of Lycans, a fanatical paramilitary-type group who use obsessive order and discipline to keep the beast within from running amok and destroying humans and selves in the process. They are ruled by the Beastmaster, a terrifying man whose personal power as a shape shifter is almost primeval. The second power pillar is The People, the Masters of the Dead, necromancers who pilot vampires (and in this world vampires are mindless killing machines unless a necromancer is in control.) The necromancers are a business as tightly run as the Mafia used to be, and they promise great power and wealth, if you’re a good necromancer. If you’re not good enough, you may end up mad or dead. Great rewards, great risks.

The husband and wife team of Ilona Andrews have created a fantastic world that is utterly real in its ability to destroy, in its struggle for a new world order. We see Kate’s loyalty and her determination, as well as her desire to hide (up to burning any cloth or bandage with her blood on it – and maybe killing someone who found out her secrets.) Paying attention, by the time we’re in to Magic Burns, the second book in the series, we can tell that Kate, unknown to most, is the third pillar of power in the triad of Atlanta – not the Knights or the Mercenary Guild – and it will be interesting to see where she ends up and who decides to side with her. People could just as easily try to kill her, once they find out who her father is.

She warms up slightly in book two – ever so slightly – and the humor is a saving grace of the books. But they are as hard or harder than early Anita Blake, and you may not like anyone in the first book. But if you like urban fantasy, I think you will be fascinated, and stick around for more.

Next time, an intricate look at Modern Paganism with The Guardians.