Huntress and Black Dawn
***SPOILERS***
Huntress
(story VII)
Jez, an
orphan vampire gang leader, finds out she's half human and moves in with those
relatives and starts to hunt bad vampires for Circle Daybreak. She also finds
out she's one of the prophesised Wild Powers, using blue fire to stop a deadly
tower block fire and a train from colliding with herself and her cousin Claire.
Early
on in the story, Jez pushed a ghoul into her bedroom wall. Claire asked what it
was and Jez responds that she dropped a book. They continued this exchange of
Claire asking what something (sound/smell) was and Jez responding with an insufficient
answer. It was a satisfying and realistic exchange (aside from the ghoul, of
course).
Near
the end, Jez is staked in the heart and she looked set to die: that injury
would kill a human and the material was wood which would kill a vampire. Being
half-and-half, Jez looked set to die. However, there was a twist: Jez was
vampire enough to survive an injury that would kill a human yet she was human
enough to be resistant to wood. This was clever.
Black
Dawn (story VIII)
Maggie
hears the news that Miles died whilst climbing a mountain from his girlfriend
Sylvia. Suspecting foul play, Maggie follows Sylvia who reveals herself to be a
witch. When Maggie wakes up, she is a slave to a kingdom that is secret even to
the Night World. Whilst there, Maggie learns that Prince Delos (who initially
hates humans and is a Wild Power) is her soul mate. She is helped by Aradia,
Maiden of the Witches, who has also been taken as a slave.
The kingdom is ruled by Prince Delos
(actually by advisors) since his father the king passed away. Why Delos wasn’t
king was beyond me. In inheriting the kingdom, Prince Delos should have become
king; even if Delos wasn’t old enough to be rule, he would still be king. The
father of Delos became king when his own father (the first king of this
kingdom) died, so there is clear precedent for the inheritance of the title of
‘king’.
At one point, Maggie thinks ‘Look
out world; it’s stomping time.’ A colon would have served so much better here.
Sylvia is working with Hunter
Redfern (Delos’ great grandfather) by stopping Delos from using the destructive
power of his blue power. At the end, when Maggie and Delos are about to be
hunted by the courtiers, Sylvia saves the day by releasing her hold on Delos’
Wild Power abilities. This earned her a stab from a wooden spear. Jeanne, a
slave who’d been helping Maggie, said pissing everyone off was how she wanted
to die (made me giggle).
With Sylvia dying from the wound of
the spear right next to her heart, Delos offers to turn her into a vampire.
Sylvia points out that as the wood was next to her heart, she would be poisoned
by it and die anyway. This was the exact opposite of Jez’s situation in the
previous story which I found to be a nice touch from the author.
Reviews: Night
World (L. J. Smith)
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume
Three 2/2
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