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#5 Platform - Living with the Dead
Dec. 8th, 2008 02:23 pmNon-supernaturals in a supernatural series actually work surprisingly well.
Book #48: Living with the Dead
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Provenance: Bought off of Amazon.ca
I can't help but anticipate each new Otherworld book as it comes out, and I have to say, I think this one is my favorite in quite a while. It's a step away from the first person style Armstrong usually uses, with a larger number of viewpoints and a lead character who isn't even supernatural, and I think that lends the story a whole new freshness that I enjoyed immensely. I think I liked this one the best of any of them since Industrial Magic, actually.
This isn't so much the story of one character as much as an ensemble piece, but the story really revolves around the travails of Robyn Peltier, an unlucky PR rep whose husband was killed a few months back in a senseless highway shooting, and whose current Paris Hilton-wannabe client turns out not to fare much better. Robyn gets wrapped up in an double murder investigation whose nature turns out to be quite out of the ordinary: both friends and foes are all supernaturals of some sort or another.
Robyn makes a pretty good lead, with a very nice arc out of depression into determination, and the other characters - Hope and Karl from Armstrong's last outing; the clairvoyant Adele; Finn, the detective who can see ghosts - make the scene very rich and as realistic as you can get in this setting. The story was nicely told and well-paced, with some good twists showing up, but rarely out of nowhere, and good use of the continuity of the series. I do think you should read this one after some of the others; otherwise, much of the references won't make sense.
The viewpoints, since they're not first person, take a little bit to work out as to whose is whose, but it's not so bad; in fact, I found it pretty easy after the first couple of go-rounds to work out what was going on. I did enjoy getting a bunch of different parts of the scene, though; Armstrong crafted this well.
Anyway, you probably shouldn't start off with this one, but if you get this far in the series, this one's definitely worth the ride.
Next up: Remembering Japanese Baseball. About as far from supernatural as you can get.
Book #48: Living with the Dead
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Provenance: Bought off of Amazon.ca
I can't help but anticipate each new Otherworld book as it comes out, and I have to say, I think this one is my favorite in quite a while. It's a step away from the first person style Armstrong usually uses, with a larger number of viewpoints and a lead character who isn't even supernatural, and I think that lends the story a whole new freshness that I enjoyed immensely. I think I liked this one the best of any of them since Industrial Magic, actually.
This isn't so much the story of one character as much as an ensemble piece, but the story really revolves around the travails of Robyn Peltier, an unlucky PR rep whose husband was killed a few months back in a senseless highway shooting, and whose current Paris Hilton-wannabe client turns out not to fare much better. Robyn gets wrapped up in an double murder investigation whose nature turns out to be quite out of the ordinary: both friends and foes are all supernaturals of some sort or another.
Robyn makes a pretty good lead, with a very nice arc out of depression into determination, and the other characters - Hope and Karl from Armstrong's last outing; the clairvoyant Adele; Finn, the detective who can see ghosts - make the scene very rich and as realistic as you can get in this setting. The story was nicely told and well-paced, with some good twists showing up, but rarely out of nowhere, and good use of the continuity of the series. I do think you should read this one after some of the others; otherwise, much of the references won't make sense.
The viewpoints, since they're not first person, take a little bit to work out as to whose is whose, but it's not so bad; in fact, I found it pretty easy after the first couple of go-rounds to work out what was going on. I did enjoy getting a bunch of different parts of the scene, though; Armstrong crafted this well.
Anyway, you probably shouldn't start off with this one, but if you get this far in the series, this one's definitely worth the ride.
Next up: Remembering Japanese Baseball. About as far from supernatural as you can get.
