Books

[dsrtao]

_Pale Demon_, Kim Harrison


The ninth book in which Rachel the red-headed special snowflake witch-demon of unusual power yet complete ineffectiveness is pushed around by the usual cast of characters. Could be considered a wrap-up of all the major story lines, but will that stop Harrison from writing more? No, I think not.

Comments

[cellio]

I think I enjoyed reading this pico-review more than you enjoyed reading the book. :-) But that's some stamina if you stuck with it through nine books!

[dsrtao]

It's not stamina. It's a relic of my childhood, in which I felt deprived of books* to the point where I would read absolutely anything, including encyclopedias. It is extremely rare for me to not finish a book I have started, and quite rare for me to put one down for a while in favor of another. Also, I read very quickly.

*This is not objectively true. My parents had a library room full of books and were willing to take me to the town library once a week and let me check out as many books as I could carry. Eventually I was taking out an orange crate full each week.

[cellio]

Oh I didn't mean sticking with the book; I share your near-inability to not finish a book. However, I'm willing to bail on long-running series that aren't doing it for me any more -- been years and years since I read a Discworld book though I loved the first half-dozen, for instance. You've read nine of these powerful-ineffective-Rachel books?

[dsrtao]

I keep hoping she's going to develop a spine. So far:
- she has successfully started a business
- gained valuable real estate
- gained useful partners (a "living" vampire and a pixie)
- made reasonably successful deals with demons (a non-theological categorization of supernatural entities)
- learned magic powers that no other humans have
- rescued people and found things sufficient to gain political favors
- become an honorary member of a werewolf clan (initially for insurance purposes)
- unveiled decades-old conspiracies
and so forth, and so on.


By the way, a bunch of the Discworld books are worth reading. I think so, anyway.