So, Unholy, pseudonymous Morgan Brice's new Witchbane entry crosses over into the authors other works in a big way, as Evan and Seth enter Charleston, South Carolina, and thereby enter the author Gail Z. Martin's other same world characters. Which gets interesting, since half the appeal of Witchbane is that the protagonists are fairly underpowered humans running around trying to stop fairly high powered temporarily immortal witch disciples, and the folks we meet in Charleston....aren't. On the other hand, we get around this major power level gap by having the main antagonist be someone working on a much more hidden level than what the crossover characters normally deal with, while doing things that eventually get them helping out in ways that don't detract from the actual hunt.
The set up for this one involves finding out that the Disciple in this one, Longstreet, traffics in relics and in human magical trafficking. However, we find out Longstreet has already made his sacrifice prior to Seth and Evan's arrival, which allows him to cause a car wreck involving the two, followed by a soon to be fatal curse that prevents them touching each other.
At which point Martin's characters come to the fore, helping stave off the effects of the curse, as well as helping speed up the research portion of figuring out where Longstreet is and what his amulet and reserve are. We get phone cameos from Brice's other series, as two of her other series protagonists phone in with psychic visions.
And we wind up with a satisfying ending that kind of helps point out the magical ivory tower verses the marginal magicians of the proletariat, and how a sneeze in one group hits the others.
It's a good entry, and I look forward to a point where the novella that covers what happens after this gets a physical copy.
No comments:
Post a Comment