Angelic

I wouldn't talk so much about Kelley Armstrong's novels if she weren't so productive.  Angelic (Subterranean Press, 2009) is actually a novella, a little under a hundred pages, focusing on the deceased half-demon-witch-ghost-ascended-angel Eve Levine, last used in a major role as the narrator of Haunted (Otherworld #5).  As you can tell just from that capsule description, Eve's situation is pretty complicated.  While I mildly enjoyed Haunted, I was rather sorry that Armstrong killed off Eve so early in the series: offstage between the first two books.  I think I'd have liked her adventures as a living person better than I do her situation as a ghost and part-time angelic bounty hunter for the Fates.

Angelic has been published in two editions: a fancy limited leather-covered edition ($43) of 200 and a less fancy and less limited mini-hardcover edition ($20) of 2000.  The first is already sold out but you might be able to get one of the second if you act fast.  I resent having a work in a popular series come out only in such a restricted way; it's very unfair to series completists, of which I suspect there are more than 2200.  I'm enough one of them to want all the associated stories, so I pre-ordered a copy of the cheaper edition back in December and then forgot about it until it turned up in my mailbox this week.  Physically, it's a lovely little book, with four interior illustrations by Maurizio Manzieri to go with the cover art.

So how was it?  Well, it's definitely only for Otherworld series fans.  While Armstrong gives some background on Eve, so many other series characters wander through with little explanation that it's really going to work best for experienced Armstrong readers.  That's been increasingly a problem as the series goes on and the number of major characters accumulates, and in a short work she doesn't have time to bring them in gracefully.  And her afterlife setup, while very original, just doesn't grab me. 

The story itself is fine, but not spectacular: Eve is sent on a mission to find out why the djinn are breaking their contracts.  It's not very substantial as tasks go and the mystery elements are thin, with one villain in particular being nearly motivation-free.  The main focus really is on Eve's ambivalence about her job and her half-hearted attempt to get herself fired.  And that part of the story telegraphs badly; I knew just how it was going to be resolved fairly early on.  It's not horrible; it's just not very exciting overall.  Her other novella, Chaotic, was the standout story in the otherwise pedestrian anthology Dates From Hell, so I know she can work well in the shorter length, but Angelic just isn't as good.  I don't think I can really recommend it for anyone but hardcore Otherworld series fans, and hardcore Eve Levine fans to boot.  It doesn't develop Eve or any of the other characters in any way that's significant to the rest of the series.

The Subterranean Press page for Angelic is here.  Kelley Armstrong's website, which includes a generous amount of free fiction, is here.

Comments

[Serge]

I pre-ordered a copy of the cheaper edition back in December and then forgot about it until it turned up in my mailbox this week

I've been buying quite a few things on Alibris these days, and having them show up in my mailbox almost feels like getting birthday presenta, even though they're from me to myself.