Real Review: Hounded by Kevin Hearne
Link: Hounded
This book's problem is that it has two things going for it and other books in the same genre have already done them and done them about twenty-one times better. In HOUNDED we are shown a world of gods walking the Earth and a world of fae up and about. Well...Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS kicks this book around the octagon, god wise. As far as the fae, Seanan McGuire's OCTOBER DAYE books are far better imagined with far more realistic characters and far far better prose.
So ten pages in, I'm making comparisons to the world Hearne has built and those comparisons aren't friendly. If you haven't read AMERICAN GODS or OCTOBER DAYE, don't even bother with the rest of this review. Pass up on HOUNDED, go and check those out instead. Trust me...twenty-one times better, in centuries *wink* *wink*
But let's say you are well read in Urban Fantasy, you've read Andrews, Butcher, Briggs, etc. and so forth...you are desperate for Urban Fantasy, any decent Urban Fantasy will do...is HOUNDED worth your five to ten hours? Yes...it is worth some time. Is it worth some money? Not really. So...borrow it? Or get a free reviewer copy like apparently hundreds of people did...
There's a lot of rookie mistakes. There's parenthesis...which, just...no. There's too much exposition and when I say "too much" I don't mean a bit here and there, I mean pages of it...in a row...exposition about exposition...exposition 360. The paragraphs aren't so much paragraphs as parablocks, but then, maybe his enter key was sticky. Words are wasted describing how the characters talk instead of just letting dialogue be dialogue.
Plus...I just didn't care that this guy stole some sword with a name I can't pronounce from some guy with a name I can't pronounce about a million years ago. Then this lady shows up...and she's hot. Then this lady shows up...and she's hot. Yeah, that repetition doesn't work when it's done with ten thousand words instead of eight either.
2.5 stars and I'll give the curve...mostly because I've been as big a dink in this review as the main character was in the book. Seriously...some one needs to punch that guy...like twenty-one times.
This book's problem is that it has two things going for it and other books in the same genre have already done them and done them about twenty-one times better. In HOUNDED we are shown a world of gods walking the Earth and a world of fae up and about. Well...Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS kicks this book around the octagon, god wise. As far as the fae, Seanan McGuire's OCTOBER DAYE books are far better imagined with far more realistic characters and far far better prose.
So ten pages in, I'm making comparisons to the world Hearne has built and those comparisons aren't friendly. If you haven't read AMERICAN GODS or OCTOBER DAYE, don't even bother with the rest of this review. Pass up on HOUNDED, go and check those out instead. Trust me...twenty-one times better, in centuries *wink* *wink*
But let's say you are well read in Urban Fantasy, you've read Andrews, Butcher, Briggs, etc. and so forth...you are desperate for Urban Fantasy, any decent Urban Fantasy will do...is HOUNDED worth your five to ten hours? Yes...it is worth some time. Is it worth some money? Not really. So...borrow it? Or get a free reviewer copy like apparently hundreds of people did...
There's a lot of rookie mistakes. There's parenthesis...which, just...no. There's too much exposition and when I say "too much" I don't mean a bit here and there, I mean pages of it...in a row...exposition about exposition...exposition 360. The paragraphs aren't so much paragraphs as parablocks, but then, maybe his enter key was sticky. Words are wasted describing how the characters talk instead of just letting dialogue be dialogue.
Plus...I just didn't care that this guy stole some sword with a name I can't pronounce from some guy with a name I can't pronounce about a million years ago. Then this lady shows up...and she's hot. Then this lady shows up...and she's hot. Yeah, that repetition doesn't work when it's done with ten thousand words instead of eight either.
2.5 stars and I'll give the curve...mostly because I've been as big a dink in this review as the main character was in the book. Seriously...some one needs to punch that guy...like twenty-one times.
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