Hounded

The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book 1

By: Kevin Hearne

Narrated by: Christopher Ragland

Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old - when in actuality, he's twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he's hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power - plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish - to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.

This is book one of the Iron Druid Chronicles series. If you would like to hear more, you will find the first chapter of book two – Hexed – at the end of this recording.

©2011 Kevin Hearne (P)2013 Hachette Audio

Entertaining Enough

While entertaining and novel enough to get three stars, I feel like they could have hot someone with an Irish accent or passable impression for the main character, who is clearly meant to have one.

Pleasant and entertaining but not especially deep.

The character of an ancient druid living in contemporary Arizona is quite interesting in itself and the book is decently written. However, there is little more to it - no great plot, no extremely interesting characters, no world-building twists. I was lured into it by the promise of an overpowered character (which I like), but I feel that promise was only partially fulfilled. It's good lightweight entertainment, but don't expect more.

Meh...

The tone of the story and the character was kind of fun... but the plot bored me and I will not be continuing the series. It feels like wasted potential. Reminds me of the Dresden Files but toned down in terms of crazyness and fun. The voice of the dog in the narration annoyed me from beginning to end.

For ages 16 and below

The whole story felt like it was written by a boy in puberty, who is into Celtic themes, rather than a professional author. The first person narrative appears like somebody is bragging and laying it on thick with bs. Characters seemed flat and their interactions forced. Especially how "stoners" were portrayed made it clear the writer has no clue what he us talking about. The story made me cringe plenty of times instead of immersing. But as this book came recommended, I guess my opinion is subjective. Maybe I was expecting too much after several books of Brandon Sanderson.

Urban Fantasy gone wrongish

What would have made Hounded better?

If the book was focues on more mature readers I think it would have been better for me at least.

What was most disappointing about Kevin Hearne’s story?

The main protagonist of the story is an old druid, realy old, yet he is writen like an obnoxious teenager, lashing out against anyone and everyone, with childish pranks, a prideful and downright bad attitude towards anyone not sworn into the secrets of the supernatural or not as special as himself, despite he himself in the story stating that he tries very hard to not get noticed or recognised for what he is. And he behaves as if no standard he requires of others is expected out of himself. He also has a destinctive lack of weeknesses, except that he falls for beautiful women(like no one does) and perhaps that he makes them interested in him for being so special, he is what every guy want to be and what every girl want to be with. While I can enjoy som guilty pleasure as well as the next guy it comes of as stale and even boring when the entire book is filled with it. It makes the book come of as a teenageres dream instead of an interesting story. This problem is by no means only apparent in the protagonist but most of the characters in the book. There are some exceptions and it makes you wish so much more that the rest of them were not so bland.
This was the biggest flaw of the book and it dragged it down for me, other things I would have liked to see changed is that some of the charactets motivation through the bok does not line up with their actions but this flaw is esier to swallow.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Christopher Ragland?

The performance of the audiobook was alright with two exceptions the dog sounds exactly like scooby doo and every woman sound like an old hag.

Any additional comments?

I realy love the setting and premise of this type of book urban lore mixed with modern society, a quick witted protagonist. It should be right up my alley for best book of the year but I struggled to get through it.
Maybe it is because the book fell short of what I wanted it to be or something else entirely.

To the good parts; as previously mentioned the setting chosen for this book is realy a marvel with a plethora of intresting characters to choose from. The way the book was written was also reealy good. It was easy to understand and to picture what was going on.

I would like to say that you can feel it is the authors first book and I have definitely read worse but the book make me question if I am the targeted audience, which when I read the premise I felt I should be as an avid fantasy and folk lore nerd. I hope the next book is better, if the problems presist in that one aswell I gor one will not give the third one a chance.