Review: Hammered by Kevin Hearne

Hammered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #3) by Kevin Hearne, Luke Daniels
Format: audiobook
Source: purchased from Audible
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: urban fantasy
Series: Iron Druid Chronicles #3
Pages: 336
Published by Brilliance Audio on July 5, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Thor, the Norse god of thunder, is worse than a blowhard and a bully — he’s ruined countless lives and killed scores of innocents. After centuries, Viking vampire Leif Helgarson is ready to get his vengeance, and he’s asked his friend Atticus O’Sullivan, the last of the Druids, to help take down this Norse nightmare. One survival strategy has worked for Atticus for more than two thousand years: stay away from the guy with the lightning bolts. But things are heating up in Atticus’s home base of Tempe, Arizona. There’s a vampire turf war brewing, and Russian demon hunters who call themselves the Hammers of God are running rampant. Despite multiple warnings and portents of dire consequences, Atticus and Leif journey to the Norse plane of Asgard, where they team up with a werewolf, a sorcerer, and an army of frost giants for an epic showdown against vicious Valkyries, angry gods, and the hammer-wielding Thunder Thug himself.

“Kevin Hearne breathes new life into old myths, creating a world both eerily familiar and startlingly original.” —NICOLE PEELER, author of Tempest Rising__________Unabridged, 8 audio discs, 9 hours 43 minutes

My Review:

I mostly listened to this, and usually while working out. But I finished up reading the ebook, because my workout ended in the middle of the climactic battle, and I just couldn’t wait to see how issues resolved.

They mostly didn’t. And that’s probably as it should be. The book ends with a lot of loose ends still jangling.

Hammered feels like the “turning point” book in the Iron Druid Chronicles. Although Atticus faced a certain amount of trouble in the first two books, Hounded and Hexed, at the end of each book Atticus was able to settle down after a job well done and live what counts as his normal life while waiting for the next crisis to jump up and bite him in the ass.

Hammered has a much different tone, and there was a strong sense throughout the story that however things ended, life was never going back to what passed for “business as usual” for Atticus, his Irish wolfhound Oberon, and his apprentice Granuaile, no matter how things turned out.

The warnings from both the Morrigan and Jesus that Atticus was stepping into a pile of shit that was going to rain crap all over everyone were not the only hints that he was messing with something that should never have been messed with, but they were the biggest and certainly the freakiest.

And of course they don’t stop him. He gave his vampire friend his word that he would take him to Asgard to help him kill Thor – no matter what it takes, and no matter what it costs.

Even if that cost is higher than he ever wanted to pay.

Escape Rating A: I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am absolutely loving this series in audio. I’m not sure how consuming one right after another would work if I were reading them, but as something to listen to on the treadmill, Atticus’ snarky sense of humor read in Luke Daniels’ marvelous voice is just about perfect.

I smirk, I chuckle, I snigger and occasionally I even laugh out loud. A lot. The scene where Jesus shows up to have a beer with Atticus and deliver his warnings – along with a rather painful lesson – had some fantastic laughter inducing moments.

But the overall tone of Hammered is pretty darn serious. Atticus is making plans to take his vampire friend and lawyer Lief as well as his werewolf friend and lawyer Gunnar to Asgard so that they can finally get revenge on Thor for some pretty seriously awful stuff.

Atticus spends a lot of the book making contingency plans. If he comes back, he knows that the gods, not just the Norse gods but multiple pantheons of gods, are going to be after him, and he needs to leave Tempe and lie very, very low for a while, along with Oberon and Granuaile. He does a lot of serious leave-taking all around, and his farewell to the Widow MacDonagh had me sniffling.

But Atticus is also planning for the reality that he might not come back, something that Granuaile doesn’t want to hear or deal with, and who can blame her?

It’s obvious throughout the story that whatever happens in Asgard, it certainly won’t stay in Asgard. Some of their very assorted company will not make it back, and even if they do, Atticus life will be irrevocably changed. The creatures who will be coming after him will be bigger, badder and a lot more powerful.

The story is going to get darker from here – and it’s going to be one hell of a ride. Even if that’s where it goes.

I have a feeling that the events in Hammered are going to be crucial for the events in the next several books, And I can’t wait to find out. I’ve already got the audio of the next book, Tricked, cued up and ready to begin.

One final comment. As Atticus and Lief’s very motley crew get ready for the trip to Asgard, there are several chapters where all the participants tell their individual stories of just why they are willing to possibly throw their lives away for a shot at Thor. The individual stories are absolutely riveting, and all are ultimately tragic. But the storytelling sequence itself reminded me very much of the author’s epic fantasy, A Plague of Giants, which is told in its entirety as a bard telling stories to a crowd. I found myself wondering if the genesis of that book might be in this sequence. Whether it is or not, A Plague of Giants is marvelous!

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