Finally the most recent book in Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicals, Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six), came to my library. I’ve been waiting for it. The Iron Druid stories are not my favorite fantasy series by a long shot – there is something just missing that’s subtle but important – but I enjoyed the books enough to want to know how Atticus, Granuaile and Oberon would wrap things up, avoid the Olympians and head off Ragnarok. You can read my prior reviews here: Iron Druid Chronicles Series by Kevin Hearne
Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six) is still missing something. It marked the first time that Atticus reflected on the truly horrible choices he made that caused the Norse, Roman and Greek pantheons to all want him dead. That was an important step because it was frustrating to read a character making dumb choice after immoral choice after really dumb choice book after book. Those choices did not make sense for character who had lived 2100 years by lying low and avoiding trouble.
Hunted doesn’t feel like a complete story. It gets Atticus and crew squared away with the Greeks and Romans – or most of them – and we see evidence that he’s on great terms with Odin, the Norse godlet that previously sought his blood. But we don’t see a conclusion, more ongoing magic and trouble while Atticus, Granuaile and Oberon run for their lives from Romania to England. There is a section at the end that feels almost like a throwaway subplot where Atticus nearly gets nailed by a manticore. It’s a set up for seventh book where we’ll learn who of the Tuatha Dé Danann has it in for him.
My library’s edition included the novella Two Ravens and One Crow which explained how Atticus ended up good buddies with Odin. That was good because my first reaction reading the good cheer between the groups was huh? It’s been a few months since I read the last one, but surely I would remember who had Atticus on their Kill List.
Previous novels featured the dog Oberon and developed him as a character. Hunted tells the story from Granuaile’s point of view but we don’t really learn anything more about her other than she loves being a druid and loves the connection to the earth. Atticus worries that she’s developing a bit of self-righteous violence and we see that, but it’s only hinted at and left as possible future conflict. Hunted does not develop the characters or the story line all that much. It wraps up some sub plots, especially with the extra novella, but it only touches on the whole vampire/Lief conflict. The book has more magic than some of the earlier ones, but it’s just that, magic, sort of poof! and good things happen.
In hindsight, I particularly enjoyed the earlier novels where Atticus took a proactive role, pushing the narrative, while in Hunted he is reactive. He reacts to the Olympian threat by running; he manages to magically heal himself after being shot; he escapes the manticore.
It just isn’t enough. I will read the seventh book when it comes out, but if this were the first book I had read in the series it would have been the only book I read.
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