Today I am going to review The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss, Book 1) by Marjorie M. Liu. I give this a 3 stars out of 5. I have loved Ms. Liu's Dirk and Steele detective agency series, starting with the book Tiger Eye. You can read my review of Tiger Eye to see how much I loved it. I have read all of her other books as well and enjoyed each one. The Iron Hunt, however, wasn't quite my thing.
The Iron Hunt is the start of a new series focusing around Demon Hunter Maxine Kiss. She has tatoos all over her body that peel off by night into little demons she calls "her boys." When the tatoos are on her body she is invincible, when they peel off they can help her battle, but she loses the invincibility.
The main problem I has with this book is that it is constantly saying "the veil is falling." This refers to the prison that was constructed to keep the demons out of our world on Earth. Well, I swear the author writes this sentence in various forms about every 10 pages. Ok, I get it already. Knock the sucker down and get on with it already was pretty much my feeling.
Other reviewers have said that the book is confusing. I was a bit confused as well, but I could handle that. What I didn't like was that the plot seemed to lack cohesiveness. It seems more like a tv episode than a novel that stands by itself. The romantic relationship between Maxine and Grant, her boyfriend, was a nice element to the book, but Grant's personality remained unexplored so he didn't seem like a 3-D fully fleshed out character.
I finished the book, but I was disappointed. I hope Marjorie Liu writes more books in the Dirk and Steele series, or a bit on the lighter side. I think I can live without the demon hunting thing.
One interesting thing about the story is the part where Maxine is trapped inside the demon prison. She has a brutal journey inside the demon prison ending in a long long swim, and the finding of a very special artifact. I read in one review that this is a similar construct to the story of then classic epic Gilgamesh. That was my favorite part of the book.
My advice to Ms. Liu for future books: be careful not to make the reader fell strung along. Keep information flowing, even if its just a little bit, so the reader feels satisfied that the plot is moving along. Don't leave the reader in the dark, totally, as this is very frustrating. Don't repeat yourself. We get it. And try exploring the relationships between the characters more fully.
Sci Fi Experience 2009 Book Review Site.
