Dead Witch Walking
Published:
Kim Harrison's "Dead Witch Walking" is an entertaining book. It is neither groundbreaking nor especially grand, but, having been published in 2004, it is a fun way to see what urban fantasy looked like two decades ago.
What did it look like? It looked spectacular. I enjoyed the slightly cheesy tone of Ms Harrison's prose, the , and the adventure itself.
Rachel Morgan (who, I would assume, got her name from none other than Morgan le Fay), is the main character: a witch law enforcement officer employed by a kind of magical bureau of investigations. She is surrounded, aided, and hampered by all sorts of equally magical creatures and characters, including vampires, warlocks, pixies, faries, werewolves, demons, etc.
"Dead Witch Walking" has everything you need. There are magical spells, rituals, and potions. There are investigations, influential drug lords, corrupt cops, refreshingly straightfoward early-2000s view of romance, competition between government organisations, underground fight rings... What more could you want?
Is it a bit silly at times? Yes.
Does it work despite the silliness? Yes! Especially since most of the silliness appears in the beginning of the book, and the story becomes more serious as soon as the introduction into the setting is over.
The series
"Dead Witch Walking" is only the first book in a series spanning 18 novels, numerous other shorter stories, published over more than 20 years. In this it reminds me of the Necroscope by Brian Lumley (of which I am not a fan, I much prefer his Psychomech trilogy), which was similarly long-lived.
An unexpected bonus
The book is also a treasure trove of ideas for game masters who, like me, are running games not set in any particular setting, and instead use a vaguely defined fantasy setting for their stories. There are so many plot ideas, hooks, places, characters, etc to steal and put into an adventure, that reading the book will pay off even if you are not a fun of the urban fantasy genre.