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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.
