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Title:
Hard Magic
Series: Grimnoir Chronicles
#1
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 5 of
5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages:
379
Words: 145K
Publish: 2011
Ahhhh,
a re-read that lives up to my memories of it.
I
read this while still (originally) on Devilreads (where I used my
real name and picture, ohhhh the naivete of a misspent social youth!)
and a friend there had recommended it to me. His account is still on
Devilreads, but he did make the jump to Booklikes and then he’s
sputtered out all over the place, so I don’t know if he’s even
online any more. That’s how online friendships (come and) go I
guess. I loved this book back then, even more so than Correia’s
Monster Hunter International series but once I finished the trilogy
in 2013, I hesitated for 13 years before taking this plunge and
re-reading it.
But
I have re-read this and it is just as good if not better than when I
read it back in ‘13. Correia gets the vibe just correct for an
Alternate History Urban Fantasy. Normally, I’d hate that subslice
of genre bastardization, but Correia makes me like it, a lot.
The
story is literally punchy, as Jake Sullivan, one of two main
characters, is a “heavy”, someone who can manipulate gravity
around himself. But he’s smart and he’s figuring stuff out about
how to use his powers that no one else has even thought of. I LIKE
that in a main character. Don’t make him stupid because you’re a
stupid writer. Correia has never gone down that path and I respect
him for that. The other main character is Faye, a teen girl who can
teleport. She seems to have unlimited power though and it hints at
the greater conflict that is coming, a conflict of cosmic
horror’esque proportions. I had not read any cosmic horror before
this back then, nor did I even know what it was. Given how I’ve
gravitated to that genre over the years, I can understand why I was
so attracted to this series without quite knowing why. Correia does
cosmic horror in his MHI series too, but it’s not quite as in your
face as here. But it isn’t the grim, hopeless, void of despair that
Cthulhu type cosmic horror is supposed to be, but a more hopeful,
humanity can survive if we just try hard enough (think of the
optimism from the original Star Trek show). I like that threat of
reality being destroyed but it is skillfully balanced by the hope,
which I also like.
In
my usual reading rotation, I have 6-8 weeks before cycling back to a
series. That gives me time to sample a wide variety of other styles
so that one series or author doesn’t overwhelm and I get burnt out
on them. I’m going to be making an exception for this trilogy. I’ll
be reading and reviewing the rest of the trilogy over the next two
weeks. Each Friday I’ll be putting up the
next review. Spellbound will
go up May 1st and Warbound will go
up May 8th.
That is very high praise in my estimation.
Also,
Wikipedia has NO individual pages for ANY of Correia’s books so
there is no indepth synopsis. With how popular Correia is with his
fanbase, I cannot fathom why this is the case. I have my suspicions,
but no concrete proof, nor do I care enough to try to do one of the
books myself just to see it deleted by the damn commies who run
wikipedia. There, that rant is out of my system so it shouldn’t
show up again in the reviews for the next two books :-D
★★★★★
From
Fandom.com
The
year is 1930. Opening the story is a chance meeting by a Portuguese
cow farmer Active Joe Vierra and a traveling family with a teenage
Active named Sally Faye. The farmer realizes she has the same Power
as him (Travel) and adopts her. A covert meeting from wealthy blimp
business mogul Cornelius Stuyvesant with the Pale Horse, Jonathan
Harkness, begins a plot to murder another man through the Power of
Plague. As payment for his work, the Pale Horse requests a future
favor from Stuyvesant who reluctantly agrees.
Three
years later, Jake Sullivan, a former soldier and now ex-convict
Active with the Power to manipulate gravity (colloquially called a
'Heavy') is serving off the last of his sentence under the federal
government to bring in criminal Actives. Sullivan is a slow-talking,
brutish looking man, but is ferociously intelligent and a master at
using his seemingly simple Power in clever and creative ways after
years of intense practice while in prison at Rockfell. His last job
with the feds is to bring in an old friend (and flame) from his
criminal days: Delilah Jones, an Active with the 'Brute' ability to
imbue her muscles with extraordinary strength. On the run for mass
murder, Delilah gives the Feds trouble and is almost captured by Jake
when a group of vigilantes appear and assist Delilah's escape on a
blimp. Sullivan is left with more questions than the government will
answer, and so goes to begin an investigation into Delilah and the
group who involved themselves to whisk her away.
The
young Sally Faye has grown into her power, able to Travel with ease
and beginning to ask Joe questions about the limits of the power and
possible ways of using it. Their lives are interrupted when a group
of men arrive at the farm looking for something Joe had been tasked
to guard years prior. Refusing to give up the item, a firefight
erupts. Joe is able to evade the enemy for just long enough to give
the device to Sally before being killed by a big man with a terribly
scarred face and a white eye called 'Mr Madi'. Telling Sally to flee,
Joe gives her instructions to find the Grimnoir.
Turning
up a few leads from an old mafia acquaintance unfortunately puts Jake
on the radar for the Red Imperium: a foreign Japanese shadow
organization that seeks to obtain world dominance. The Red Imperium
sends members of the elite Iron Guard to kill Sullivan, but are
stopped by the very same party that assisted Delilah: The Grimnoir.
Another secret organization, their purpose is to uphold justice and
protect the world with their Grimnoir Knights.
Dark
forces are at work to gather components of a deadly Tesla device, and
it becomes a race to recover the missing pieces before the enemy can
put the device back together.
