Kane, Stacia: Unholy Ghosts
Unholy Ghosts (2009)
Written by: Stacia Kane
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 346 (Mass Market Paperback)
Why I Read It: I've heard great things about this series, that it promised to be something other than your typical urban fantasy shtick. I was also somewhat entertained by the premise, and since I've read Kane's work before, I finally decided to give it a shot.
The premise: ganked from author's website: THE AFTERLIFE IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch and freewheeling Debunker and ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing the human liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that’s landed her in hot and dangerous water.
Chess owes a murderous drug lord named Bump a lot of money. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay. I'll talk about the struggle I had deciding whether or not to keep reading the book, and what the book does have to offer, despite that struggle.
So on paper, the premise sounds great. I really like the idea of a Church of Ghost Hunters (which is what it amounts to) and how that has changed and influenced religion in the world. It's odd, because I read this book right after finishing Delirium, and both books not only preface their chapters with excerpts from important religious/government documents, but Christianity has been fundamentally changed due to the historical events in the book. Certainly, there's fascinating questions (that sometimes lead to contradictions in the narrative) and what it means to have a Church when religion has essentially been disproven and people know what happens to you after you die.
And while reading third-person POV in an urban fantasy can be off-putting for some reason, I'm used to it, thanks to Lyn Benedict and Kane herself (I've read Personal Demons by Stacia Kane), and I want to say I've read a few other urban fantasies that do this, so it's not that big of deal.
And I don't even want to say the drug-addiction was a problem for me. Certainly, it's kind of a wonder that no one's done it before, because urban = city, and let's face it, cities, let alone the world, are full of drugs. The idea that the good guy (girl, in this case) is an addict is a great twist.
But I just wasn't engaged. It's a tale-tell sign when I find myself going to Amazon to read reviews of the book and I'm not even 100 pages in, you know? The immediate Ghostbusters references had me rolling my eyes instead of cackling with nostalgic glee (since I didn't see the films until I was an adult, I obviously have no nostalgia for the franchise), and the dialect used by the various characters was enough to induce a spork in the eye. And it wasn't just the drug dealers and enforcers who couldn't talk normally, but Chess' superiors had to talk funny too, using "twas," and "tis" and all sorts of nonsense in regular speech, which was almost worse to me than a sentence like "You look like damn" (page 211) instead of "You look like shit." I can't quite put my finger on why it didn't work, but it's almost as if Kane had the great idea to do this, but didn't follow through completely. Kind of like going off a diving board and belly-flopping instead of a clean, smooth dive. An effort was certainly made, but the results are less than appealing.
Also, when calling someone a name, even a nickname like "tulip," the first letter should be capitalized "Tulip" because it's a nickname. I don't know why Kane never capitalized it in this book, unless it's along the lines of the whole dialect issue I discuss above, but seriously, you can't hear capital letters, and anyone who says you can is kidding themselves.
It's also bad when I finish a chapter and write a note that says, "This chapter lame." Because I felt the sequence of events was a bit much consider what little was accomplished, plot-wise and emotional-arc wise.
So why keep reading? I really don't know, to tell you the truth. I did like the whole thing about the ghosts and the central mystery of the old airport was interesting. But what I really think kept me going was the budding friendship between Chess and Terrible (yes, that's a guy), because they had such a great chemistry together. By chemistry I'm not referring to romance, though I am interested to see if it ever comes to that. I just mean they work well together and keep things interesting. Chess alone isn't as interesting as she is when she's with Terrible.
The drug addict element didn't bug me. I didn't love it or revel in it, but it didn't bug me. There's a few instances where we get to peek into Chess' psyche and we understand why drugs are such an appeal, and at times, her taking drugs is rather instrumental to the plot (and at other times, rather disastrous for the emotional arc). I did, however, question the different KINDS of drugs Chess took. Granted, I'm clean as a whistle when it comes to drugs, never even tried them, nor do I know anyone who takes them (rather, if they take them, they've hidden it well), so I know nothing about addiction short of what I've seen in, say, HBO's The Wire. But I was always under the impression that addicts didn't mix and match their drugs much unless they were desperate for a fix. They had their drug of choice, and might take more of that drug of choice as their body grew immune to it, and maybe even need to move to a different drug once they'd maxed out the pleasure from their drug of choice, but taking a bunch of various drugs at once? That didn't ring true to me, but then again, that may be my own ignorance showing.
I also found myself less impressed with this dark, urban fantasy in the third person because I'm already invested in a dark, urban fantasy in the third person: Lyn Benedict's Shadows Inquiries. They're very different in terms of world-building and in terms of heriones, but Benedict's series feels darker (admittedly, I'm comparing Kane's one to Benedict's three that I've read), and while the Hand of Glory used in this novel might be a new and novel thing to some urban fantasy readers, I've already seen Benedict use it in her series, and worse for my experience reading Kane, Benedict's Hands of Glory are far cooler, far creepier, and made much more sense.
But maybe I'm biased?
I also found that sometimes, Chess' fear was totally out of place. Later in the book I'd understand that what I thought was the norm was NOT the norm, but the fault then lies with Kane's narrative: it should've been made clear from the start that THINGS WERE NOT NORMAL, and therefore, Chess had a right to be freaking the hell out. But it didn't read that way to me, which made my like Chess less.
And despite my liking the ideas fueling the world-building, can I just say how much I hate the term "Haunted Week?" It sounds like a freaking fraternity event, not what it actually was. "The Week of the Haunting" would've been far more appropriate, and less frat-sounding.
My Rating: It's a Gamble
There's no doubt that Chess is a unique urban fantasy heroine, but the trouble is that she's so unique she may rub the reader the wrong way. Her drug addiction is certainly the biggest hit or miss aspect to her character. I can't say it bugged me, but I wasn't in love with it either. There's stuff to like in this book, and certainly, I can't say the book isn't unique. But it didn't grab me like I hoped it would, and I've read other authors who I feel do a better job with dark, gritty urban fantasy in the third person. I'm debating the second book, because there are things I liked about this one (I had to, in order to keep reading), and lately, my track record has revealed that sometimes I may not like the series debut, but end up falling in love with said series in the second or third book. So it's possible I'll give this series another shot, if only for Terrible, who's a ridiculously great character. Still though, this is one of those books that you really won't know if you'll like it until you read it, so remember that when picking this one up.
Cover Commentary: It's quite colorful and eye-catching, far nicer than the original cover slapped on this book back in 2009 or so when this first came out. This newest cover is definitely pretty, but not my favorite in the series (that honor goes to book two. Better still, even though it shows Chess sporting tattoos, the tattoos have a purpose in the book!
Oh, wait, one quibble here: You have to look REALLY CLOSE at the cover (I'm not sure it'll show up on the computer, so check this out in person), but note how the image looks behind the title itself. Then look right below the title at the red fabric. Look behind the title again, then below. She suddenly has big boobs! It's very odd, and I keep wondering if the book size is realistic or if the removal of part of the image behind the title is skewing the perspective.
Have the book and never noticed that before? You're welcome. :)
Next up: China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh