Killing Rocks by D.D. Barant

I reviewed the second book in this series, Death Blows, last spring. I didn't like it much but I'd enjoyed the first book, Dying Bites, so much that I gave the series a pass until I could read the third book and see in what direction Barant was taking the series.

Well, Killing Rocks is the third book. The only good thing I have to say about it is that it just freed up some space on my bookshelves, because it's going to the used bookstore along with the second book. I'll keep the first. I liked it.

To recap the series quickly, FBI profiler Jace Valchek has been yanked into an alternate reality by a powerful sorcerer in order to track down a serial killer. In the alternate world, humans are a protected minority species--most people are vampires or werewolves. If Jace can engineer the serial killer's capture, she can go home to her own reality. In Killing Rocks, Jace thinks she's close to getting the killer, with a bonus of capturing the rogue sorcerer who brought her to this world and can put her back. Then things go kerblooey and she's stuck in the middle of a war as the golems take over.

This book is just one deus ex machina after another. Jace does absolutely nothing--there's no reason for her to be the main character. In fact, there's really no reason for her to be in the book at all. She reacts, runs away, gets rescued repeatedly, and thinks a lot about her past for no good reason. (The irony is that last year I used Jace as an example of a smart, active urban fantasy heroine in a rant against UF where the heroines do nothing but react and get rescued.)

The ending--no lie--is taken directly from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Except in the movie, it was supposed to be ludicrous and unrealistic. Also, I cannot forgive the author's blatant maneuvering to keep Jace from resolving her problems and therefore ending the series. Barant, you're not fooling anyone.

The main problem with the book and the series, I think, is that the author has plotted it out very carefully (and I'm guessing she didn't have the overarching plot in place until after she'd finished the first book, because it's clear she keeps having to fudge to make things match up). She can't deviate from the plot, but the plot doesn't allow for Jace to actually make a difference. That's why Jace comes across as a witness to events instead of an active player. That's all she is.

And I know I've harped on this in the other DD Barant reviews, but the present tense is unnecessary and annoying. It's far worse in this book, though, since big chunks consist of flashbacks, infodumping in the form of stories and legends, and characters recounting events to other characters--all in past tense. The constant tense changes are jarring.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Lertulo's review of the first book, which he really didn't like. Frankly, after reading this third book, I see exactly where he's coming from.

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Dying Bites by D D Barant

Yet another urban fantasy series. I'd really love to say this one stood out in some fashion from the genre, but the truth is it doesn't. From its cookie-cutter MC to its snarky, double-entendre title it's pretty much a carbon copy of everything on the UF shelf that you've already read.

Let's start with that MC--and I can't do it any better than the book does itself:

"I get my share of male attention. I stand five eight, do a hundred crunches a day and have the abs to prove it. I've been told I have the neckline of a goddess, though nobody ever says which one. My hair is long, very black, and full, while my features tend more toward the Slavic definition of beauty than North American. I don't put on a miniskirt unless I mean it, but when I do I can cause car accidents."

Mary Sue, any one? MC is tough as nails, carries an oversized gun (page 3: "It's a Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan, a short-barreled revolver chambered with .454 ammunition..."), enough martial arts to handle a werewolf in full attack mode... you get the drift.

Pretty bad so far. The only thing that remotely makes this series different from its peers is its setting: the first pages introduce the MC being slipped from our universe through a dimensional gateway to a parallel one, and in this new place humans are a small government-protected minority of the population (rough thirds being vampire, were and golem--that last at least an interesting addition). And the only part of the plot that's worthwhile is that the MC is chasing a serial killer, and it's at least mildly interesting to try to figure out what's happening before the characters do.

The book culminates in a Deus Ex Machina ending, nearly literally, that comes through as a horrific blunt trauma to the reader's suspension of disbelief. It's clear that the author wants to set up a sequel--and in fact, one's available--but I have no idea why any reader would bother.

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Death Blows by DD Barant

Death Blows is the sequel to Dying Bites. This is a series of books with the most generic titles imaginable. Fortunately, the books are much more memorable.

In the first book, FBI criminal profiler Jace Valchek was yanked into an alternate world to help track down an insane serial killer. The population of the world she's been brought to is 99% vampires and werewolves, 1% humans. In this book, she's got another serial killer to track down--a murderer who seems to be connected with magic-enhanced comic books, a band of superheroes who turn out to be real, and not one but about 500 secret societies.

Seriously, there are so many secret societies that I stopped being able to keep them apart. I also had trouble keeping track of the conspiracies and counter-conspiracies. About halfway through the book, my interest sagged so much I almost just gave up. By the time I got to the two separate instances of (to paraphrase) "it's time you were told the real truth," I was just annoyed that the real truth had been held back for so damn long. It doesn't help that, yes, this book is in present tense like the first one was. It continually threw me out of the story, particularly when I came back to it after setting it aside for a while.

The world Barant has built is fascinating, but it's not a lot of fun. Humans are an endangered species, preyed on by vampires and werewolves--the insulting term for humans is "OR," original recipe. Barant does a great job building the tension between Jace's professional responsibilities and her personal difficulties adjusting to a world where she's considered prey or someone to be pitied; the professional and personal overlap a lot, causing even more tension. Jace has made a few friends in her new world, but ultimately she just wants to get home again.

But. The last paragraph? Those issues do not resolve or change in this book, and indeed barely apply to the plot at all. While Death Blows is mostly entertaining, I dislike having to essentially march in place, with the real plot--Jace tracking down the one person whose arrest can get her a ticket home--sidelined for an entire book. I dislike even more that the major theme of racism--because that's essentially what this is all about, except that it's more species-ism in this case--isn't given more than a quick stir before being left to simmer some more. I know this is a series and the overarching themes can't be resolved in one book or even a few, but I'd like some hint that Barant intends to resolve them at all, and that she has plans to that effect. Oh, and she can stop writing in present tense whenever she likes.

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Dying Bites by DD Barant

I ordinarily don't read books written in present tense. I can think of only one book (Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman) where it worked for me. In the case of Dying Bites, the book is good in spite of being in present tense, not because of it.

Dying Bites is a richly layered book, just perfect to really dig into. It starts off fast and doesn't flag. Stuff just keeps happening, which I love--and it's not just action scenes that move the plot forward, but the interplay of characters and the slow revealing of background and history of this world. The downside to this is that the main character, Jace Valchek, seems to drop into the story with barely any past of her own.

Jace works for the FBI as a profiler, helping track down psychopaths, but she's pulled into an alternate reality where vampires and werewolves are common. There's a human serial killer murdering vampires and werewolves; since the supernatural species are mostly mentally stable, they don't know how to deal with the killer. Jace has been brought in to help track him down.

That alone would make for a fun urban fantasy, but that's just the surface. Jace has to get used a world in which humans make up only 1% of the population; she's got a golem for a partner, no one knows what guns are (and the bullets don't do much damage to the locals anyway), and as the book progresses, she becomes more and more certain that her new bosses are holding back vital information about what the serial killer is actually up to--and why.

The plot is solid and clever, and I love that Jace is an intelligent character. The writing is good too--despite its being in present tense. The present tense doesn't make the story more immediate, incidentally. It even seems to do the opposite: in several cases, important events take place offscreen. I don't have a problem with cutting away modestly from a sex scene (although I'd have liked at least some buildup so I wasn't so surprised, after the scene break, to find that Jace had indeed done the nasty), but it really feels like a cop-out when important conversations, fights, and explosions are treated the same way.

On the whole, though, the awesomeness of this book far outweighs the few drawbacks, even the present tense. But just think how awesome it would have been if it didn't continually draw attention to the mechanics of the writing.

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