When FanLit interviewed Nancy Holzner last month, I thought she sounded so nice, and her debut, Deadtown, sounded awesome. While shopping that night at my local Wal-Mart, I noticed Deadtown on the shelf, so, naturally, into my cart it went, and I started reading as soon as I got home.
After a mysterious plague strikes Boston, its fallout area becomes known as Deadtown. Deadtown residents are controlled by the state of Massachusetts — they have few rights and must carry identifying papers when they move about the various zones. Paranormals are segregated, creating a racially tense atmosphere that underlies the whole story.
Deadtown’s lead character is a deceptively dynamic female shapeshifter named Victory Vaughn (Vicky). Through her welsh ancestry and hard work, Vicky became a demon hunter for hire. She gets wrapped up in a series of events that has Boston’s human and non-human communities in danger. Lots of action, political intrigue, and sleuthing are required from Vicky in order to try to save the city and its people.
There is a wide cast of supporting characters in Deadtown, and they range from typical to downright awesome. Holzner’s take on demons is a fun mix of literal interpretations of abstract concepts and actual demons you’d find in typical fantasy. For example, Hellions are demons who feed off violence and destruction and can be summoned and bound by sorcerers in the typical fantasy fashion. But then there are the Eidolons — demons that manifest from an individual’s feelings of guilt. They are self-created, but not any less real than the Hellions are. It’s a cool way of imagining demons. The zombies in Deadtown are also great; Vicky’s zombie sidekick/trainee, Tina, chews gum, wears midriff-baring t-shirts, and possesses an inhuman amount of strength. Holzner regularly takes a known urban fantasy device and twists it in her unique way. Vampires, werewolves, and witches are all spun creatively. I look forward to seeing what kind of characters Ms. Holzner brings into a sequel.
Deadtown is also well-written. Holzner uses a straightforward storytelling approach that I like and is quite common in urban fantasy. I think the plot pacing was somewhat unbalanced, as I felt a little rushed during the last 1/4 of the book. I reached a point in the story where I was getting concerned that I was not going to get a satisfying ending. I kept thinking there is no way she’s going to wrap this up in the amount of pages left. The story however did get wrapped up, and ultimately I was satisfied with how Holzner pulled it all together.
I became a fan of urban fantasy when I ran out of Jim Butcher’s THE DRESDEN FILES books. My search for substitutes has brought me to discover several authors in that same vein who I particularly like: Patricia Briggs, Simon R. Green, and now Nancy Holzner. That’s lofty company for a debut fantasy writer, but Deadtown holds up quite well against the best in the genre. It’s really an exceptional start of a new series. I’ll be eagerly waiting for the sequel.
www.fantasyliterature.com.
You can also learn more about Nancy’s books at the Fantasyliterature Nancy Holzner page
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