Hard Magic

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Jake Sullivan is not your average Heavy. He spent his jail time honing his skills and improving his mind and now he???s J. Edgar Hoover???s super-weapon, useful for fighting Fades, Torches, Brutes, and any of the other Actives who are using their magic for criminal purposes. Jake doesn???t like being used this way, but it???s his ticket out of prison. When the FBI asks Jake to bring down Delilah Jones, the Brute who used to be his girlfriend, Jake gets caught up in a world-wide battle that involves magic, mobsters, zombies, zeppelins, Ninjas and Nikola Tesla???s peace ray.

Knowing that Larry Correia was into big guns and B movies, I wasn???t planning to pick up Hard Magic, the first of his Grimnoir Chronicles. It doesn???t really sound like my kind of thing. But then I noticed that it was released in audio by Audible Frontiers (who always do a superb production) and narrated by actor Bronson Pinchot. I decided to give it a shot, and I???m glad I did. Even though it is a bit too gory for me, Hard Magic is an exciting story with a fully-developed world, a cool magic system, terrific characters, and some hard-hitting action scenes.

I won???t even try to classify Hard Magic ??? it???s urban, it???s alternate history, it???s paranormal, it???s steampunk, it???s romance, it???s horror, it???s noir ??? it???s a little bit of everything. The story is set in an alternate 20th century between WWI and WWII. Magic talents have evolved in some humans so that each Active has one particular skill. For example, Jake Sullivan can alter gravitational forces, making himself or other objects light or heavy, Torches can set or put out fires, and Brutes have super strength. In addition to these heritable magical skills, the Germans have developed a way to create zombies to keep their soldiers fighting during The Great War, and the Japanese have developed their own nearly indestructible human super-weapons which they call the Iron Guard. And everyone wants to find the missing pieces of the machine that Nikola Tesla was working on at Wardenclyffe.

There???s a lot going on in the Grimnoir Chronicles, but Correia gives us a break by setting it in our own almost-recognizable world. The bits of true history orient the reader, and the mangled quotes of real historical figures at the beginning of each chapter give Hard Magic an authentic feel:

* I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, by magical gift a Cog, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever. ???Albert Einstein, 1919
* You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun. A smile, a gun, and a Brute get you the key to the city. ???Al ???Scarface??? Capone, 1930

Hard Magic is well-written and frequently funny. The complex and twisty plot moves swiftly and is full of intriguing characters such as the uneducated orphan who can Travel, the German Fade who walks through walls, the Pale Horse whose curse kills, the greedy billionaire who designs airships... there are too many interesting characters to list. All of their cool magical skills lead to some hardcore fight scenes. Most readers will probably find these fights to be the most fun part of the book. I was grossed out more than once and kind of irked that dead people didn???t necessarily stay dead, but that???s just me.

If you???re familiar with Bronson Pinchot???s acting career, it won???t surprise you to learn that his narration of the audiobook was brilliant. He took the whole production to a higher level. He easily managed all those characters with their different ethnicities and education levels ??? it was delightful, and was one of the best audiobook performances I???ve ever heard.

Despite my queasiness, I???m looking forward to Spellbound, the next novel in the Grimnoir Chronicles. I can highly recommend this series to urban fantasy/noir fans who don???t mind reading about ripped off heads and steaming entrails. If you want to give it a try, read the first few chapters of Hard Magic at Larry Correia???s blog.

This book is one of those 101 on how to write. The scenes are immersive, described through the use of multiple senses. The characters are brought to life with plenty of details and introspective dialogs. They are fully fleshed out, with unique personalities, narrated in an accessible language.

The exposition is perfectly paced. The plot evolves evenly throughout the book. It is interesting enough and it makes sense. The characters make sense. The villain is somewhat of a cliché, the ‘well meaning but cruel bad guy' and so are some of the characters, but that doesn't diminish the quality of the story.

The setting captures perfectly the spirit of the beginning of 20th century. It blends magic organically into the world, without being something over the top or downplayed. Major events in history of mankind are slightly changed to take into account the discovery of magic. Hitler for instance was a powerful necromancer, that used the resurrected bodies of his soldiers to keep fighting until their bones are shattered to dust. Tesla was an exceptional ‘cog', a super scientist of sorts, individuals who excel in a field of knowledge. So was Browning, the famous firearms designer, who is also an important character of the book.

Magic by the way is also explained in a very sensible manner, even rational I would say. Most of the magical people have just some minor magical affinity, with only a few developing their powers to a significant amount.

The reason I don't rate this book higher is that the plot in not exceptional/aligned enough to my interests. It is somewhat tame in most aspects (weird, fantastic, intellectual), so much that I would recommend this book to ‘normal' readers. Normal being somewhat averse to fantasy.

What follows is a minor criticism in the grand scheme of things:

- Your enemy is the most powerful human being that ever lived. He is immortal, you tried bombs, electrocution, fire, drowning, decapitation with the sharpest magically enhanced blade. Nothing worked. He haven't even got a scratch, gasped or dropped a sweat. This guy then gets a hold of the most powerful weapon ever created. It is world reaching ray that can destroy the entire US East coast with one single use, seconds after it is activated. He is about to use it for that very same purpose, and following that, he will threat the rest of the world into submission.- One guy has an idea to defeat him. But in order for him to execute his plan he must break an oath of never disobeying his superiors. He goes even further, he kills one of them. But his plan is a success. The enemy is dead, right at the last second where the US would be vaporized. Millions would have died.- You find about about his plan. Well, because he told you. You then decide he is a traitor and kills him as a reward. Never mind that by doing so, you act as judge and executioner. You also just violated the same oath he has taken, which also somewhat includes "don't execute other members of the order whenever you see fit'.- Now, I would call that a very stupid logic reasoning, most people would call it justice. That's besides the point. It is OK for stories to have such divisive characters performing actions that makes us question about its ethics and argue among ourselves. What it is NOT OK is for it to have NO CONSEQUENCE WHATSOEVER! Did any of the characters asked if killing one to save many is the right thing to do? What about cold blooded killing the culprit for said murder?

- This was a lost opportunity for plot and character developing.