Hammered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #3)

by Kevin Hearne

You’re free to do the same; this guide is not intended to be prescriptive but rather descriptive of the way the author would say things, and you are welcome to adopt them or to make fun of me on language bulletin boards.

This is Kevin Hearne commenting on his inclusion of pronunciation guides at the beginning of each book. It's this level of nerdom that keeps me coming back.

According to popular imagination, squirrels are supposed to be adorable.

Those people do not live in NYC, Squirrels are not cute.

Damn inquisitive squirrel. He found out from the King of the Dark Elves. The entire evil plot was hatched in their, uh, evil minds. When in doubt, blame the dark elves.

tattooed right arm and pointing at it with my left hand. “I know you can’t read what these bindings mean yet, but there’s a condition woven into these knots. As soon as you attempt to use any of the earth’s energy to directly harm or kill a living creature—any creature, mind you, not just a human—you’re dead. The only reason the earth grants Druids her power is that we’re pledged to protect her life. So if a rhino charges me, I’m not bursting its heart. I’m getting out of the way.”

Odd that he's not a vegan. This is something that has bothered me throughout the entire series. If he's bound to the earth and is meant to protect the earth, why wouldn't he eschew killing animals for food?

“I see. And who is this author?” “Neil Fucking Gaiman.”

Called it!

“Excellent!” Jesus beamed at him. “Now go and stake some vamps. Especially the sparkly emo ones.”

This is a apparently a meme that is lost on me. This is now the third novel (all by different authors) that makes reference to "sparkly emo" vampires. I don't understand where all the sparkly emo vampires are hiding. Can someone clue me in on this pop culture reference that I'm missing? eta: Apparently, this is a reference to "Twilight," (which was my guess) - a franchise I have neither read nor watched.

This is how gods are strong today. Christ, Allah, Yahweh, Buddha, Krishna: They have pages and pages of words about them. These words travel everywhere to bring idea of them to new generations. I have stone statues that travel nowhere. If lucky, I get half hour of man on History Channel asking who I was in deep voice.

The Gaimon is strong with this one

but Gunnar suffered especially, because wolves don’t like to fly.

That werewolves dislike to fly seems to be current canon. I'm interested in the genesis of this bit of werewolf lore. (Similar to "sparkly emo vampires," I've read a few novels by different authors that all note that werewolves don't like to fly.)