Hounded

The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book 1

By: Kevin Hearne

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

The first novel in the Iron Druid Chronicles - introducing a cool, new, funny urban fantasy hero

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 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. 

Don’t miss any of Kevin Hearne’s phenomenal Iron Druid Chronicles novels:
Hounded | Hexed | Hammered | Tricked | Trapped | Hunted | Shattered | Staked

©2011 by Kevin Hearne. (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Critic Reviews

"Hearne, a self-professed comic-book nerd, has turned his love of awesome dudes whacking mightily at evil villains into a superb urban fantasy debut.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A page-turning and often laugh-out-loud funny caper through a mix of the modern and the mythic.” (Ari Marmell, author of The Warlord’s Legacy)

“Kevin Hearne breathes new life into old myths, creating a world both eerily familiar and startlingly original.” (Nicole Peeler, author of Tempest Rising)

Underwhelming

This book felt like it was targeted to a much younger audience. I'm talking about 12 years old (I'm in my 30's). And even then, it wouldn't be so great. The only character that has some character is the dog, and even he is a "generic dog" type. All the other characters felt flat and patterned, and specifically the female characters. All of them were "hot" (author's word choice), teasing, and inexplicably interested in the protagonist. Who, by the way, was able to sweep them of their feet whenever he so chose. So, yeah, a 12 years old boy's fantasy. The plot was quite clear, but nothing exciting. The writing was effective, but very plain. I just felt bored most of the time.
As for the narrator, he did a fine job with the dialogue and voices, but to me he fell short with the other parts. He read a battle scenes at the same pace and emotion as he read the quite scenes, and it made it harder for me to remain enveloped in the story (which didn't grip me very much in the first place).

Finally, a modern day fantasy that really hits the

Where does Hounded rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Very high on the list. The perfornance was admirable and the tone and inflection of voice gave a emersive experience. The book scratched an itch I didn't even knew I had.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Hounded?

The conversations with the protagonist and his dog. It gave me a real Scooby Doo for adults feel and the comic relief was great for spacing the drama.

What does Luke Daniels bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Each character got their own unique voice and they sounded in pitch in tone the same way they behaved. It was truly theatre of the mind and I wallowed in it.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed many times during this book and immediately purchased the subsequent books in the series and finished them within 48 hours. I was smiling the whole time and nearly destroyed my penchant for overbearing cynicism.

Any additional comments?

My hat is off to the author for somehow convincing his publisher to let the book go to press without a clear romantic interest for the protagonist. It took me nearly a week to realize what was different about it and I appreciated the subtlety. There is an easy manner to the story that really lets you kick your feet up. It's not boring or a rip roaring ride. It just feels good like sitting at the ocean and feeling the gentle breeze cascade over your skin while the waves crash against the surf. It promotes a catharsis while discussing violence in a sinister way. Words fail so I will say this. I have been a member for over a year and I have never even considered writing a review until now, even for some of my favorite authors. This is truly a buried treasure that shouldn't be missed for any modern fantasy fan boy.

so this Series has a soul crushing ending

so these books are reasonably good I enjoyed them but all the good and entertainment was stolen at the end with a truly miserable ending to the series. it's actually quite soul-crushing and leaves you in the end with a sense of having wasted your time. Or at least that is how I felt. to have character development brought to a horrible end over Petty and arbitrary decisions that are out early incongruent. It's just like the author decided to end this and make sure it never rose again.

Compares favorably to Dresden series

Another reviewer compared this to Jim Butcher's excellent Dresden series, and Kevin Hearne's work so far does compare quite favorably to that high mark. The setting is modern-day Arizona, but all the trappings are fantasy: druids, witches, werewolves, vampires, and a healthy bag of mixed gods. There's bawdiness and language enough to make this one for grown-up readers, though I'll say none of it is overdone or forced. The most fun aspect of the book is the relationship between the druid and his dog: think back to the classic (and somewhat underground) science fiction movie "A Boy and his Dog" and you'll get the flavor of Atticus' relationship with his Irish wolfhound, Oberon. It was obvious that the reader particularly enjoyed voicing Oberon, and more than once I found myself chuckling aloud at the great characterization. The story itself was well paced and engaging and I was sorry to have it end though I didn't feel cheated. I'm off to work on book 2 now.

Interesting ideas can't save awful writing

Urban fantasy novels often share a lot of details (vampires, werewolves and fey can't change all that much or they lose that identifiable quality that makes them so ubiquitous), but this one is particularly bad. Other reviews go into more detail, but the short version is that this novel is either an intentional copycat of the Dresden Files, or written by an avid fan. There are too many similarities for it to be coincidence.

But that's not what buries this novel. No, the problem is that the author has no skill in constructing a compelling, interesting narrative. The character is a Mary Sue who experiences zero character growth throughout the novel. He always knows just what to do and no problem requires anything more complicated than the head-on approach. He has great cosmic power and some of the most powerful artifacts in the world. He has nowhere to go. There is no character arc here. I had hoped something would be taken away from him before the end of this book, setting up the rest in the series, but he just gets more power and more artifacts.

Still, even a really powerful character could still be interesting if he was faced with equally (or more) powerful opposition. In this case he's up against literal gods, which seemed potentially workable. Unfortunately, there is nothing interesting or clever about those conflicts. What should be tense encounters where the reader has no idea how the protagonist will pull through are over in a heartbeat; solved with simple tricks or straight up overwhelming violence. At one point our hero compares the villain to a chess player plotting several moves ahead, but that is giving the enemy (and the author) far too much credit. And it certainly doesn't slow him down once he gets some sexy goddess deus ex machina support (which was only necessary because he underestimated some other deus ex machina support from an entirely different sexy goddess).

I don't understand how such a poorly plotted story with such a flat protagonist can receive the kind of praise this book has. I will certainly admit to finding the Irish mythology interesting, but that doesn't do much to hide just how poor of an imitation this book is.

Fun ideas, great narration, mediocre writing

I was hooked on this book from the start, but unfortunately by the end I was bored and even a bit irritated. The world , characters, and magical concepts are really fun, and seemed to hold a lot of possibility. I loved the idea that all gods and supernatural beings exist, and Atticus' magic seemed very interesting. As the story went on, however, the writing let down all the fun ideas.

The book has a serious flaw - the main character is totally unbelievable, and despite how interesting he is on paper, in reality he's pretty dull. We're supposed to imagine he's a 2100 year old druid, but every cultural reference Atticus makes - and they are frequent - is from the past 40 years (save for mentions of Shakespeare here and there). Are we really to believe a two century old druid on the run from a godlike enemy, who has spent hundreds of years growing his druidic powers through deep study and hard work, sits around watching South Park? Obviously he would pick up bits of culture here and there, but it would be far more entertaining and interesting to give us references from his ENTIRE life, not just the bits the author happens to know about. The way it is, I laughed for a while, then the constant barrage of modern references started to wear on me and just felt like lazy writing.

I read something in another review that I thought was spot on. The reviewer commented about how hard it can be to write a character more intelligent than you, and in this case the character is 2100 years old. He's managed to live much longer than any others of his kind, implying that he's intelligent, cagey, and prudent. Much is made of his hundreds of years of study, implying he's very learned and wise as well. Unfortunately, we're given his resume, but aside from a few conversations where he's shown to be alert and clever, you'd never believe this guy had 2100 years of learning and life experience packed into his brain. In the end I think the task of writing for someone much more intelligent and experienced was too much for Hearne.

Additionally, there is no sense for how Atticus really lives in the real world, as essentially a supernatural being and an immortal (he's not technically either, but to a normal Joe he would be both). He's written as extremely likable and intelligent, not to mention sexually irresistible to several of the females characters, yet we get no sense that he struggles with friendships or bonds with normal folks. People would be clamoring to get to know this interesting, tattooed, sexy man, and he would have to deal with that somehow. His only apparent friend is his elderly neighbor, who asks little of him aside from yard work and sharing a glass of whiskey. Did his employee never probe a bit to see what the deal is with this 21 year old occult bookstore owner? Has he never fallen for a woman and had to wrestle with keeping the truth from her? The book is obviously meant to be lightweight, so I didn't expect a lot, but even ONE interaction to give us a hint that Atticus does indeed live in the real world, and has to deal with his place among regular people, would make him so much more believable.

My last problem with the book is that everything is too easy, too pat. I never felt like the main characters were really in much danger. There was always just enough magic to save the day, or someone turned out perfectly fine even though much was made of a danger a few minutes back. Despite all the terrible magic and violence, I was never really concerned. And again, the book is clearly meant to be lightweight and fun, but without real danger or consequences, all it turned out to be was silly and a little dull.

Despite these flaws, there are many cool ideas, and fun characters (if not well fleshed-out) and fans of urban fantasy looking for something lightweight ma enjoy this, and the narration is fantastic.

Enjoyable action packed narrative

I chose this novel based on the synopsis and the sample of the narrator. I was unfamiliar with the series and the author. And I've been delightfully surprised. I very much enjoyed the story arc. The characters are well developed and intriguing. I was curious enough to look up the author's web page and found more interesting background information and - Joy! - more novels in the series. I like to follow series characters and as long as Kevin Hearne continues to offer adventures and challenges of Atticus O'Sullivan's life, I will be a dedicated follower. If you enjoy wizardry, fantasy, good vs evil and epics about ancient gods, mixed in with a bit modern dry wit, you will most likely enjoy this story. I feel the narrator did a great job with Atticus's personality. I will be enjoying this story and those to follow many times. And perhaps more importantly to the author, I'll be yakking to all who will listen about the latest great book I've found.

cute

Given the amazing number of rave reviews written for this book, it has obviously provided a lot of people a great deal of pleasure. That is pretty hard to argue with but, even though I enjoyed the book well enough, I did have a few problems with it. I have to admit that, though I love many of the books in the high fantasy tradition, for whatever reason I am just not much of a fan of the very popular urban fantasy genre. So Atticus the contemporary druid probably had a bit of a hard nut to crack in me. Still, I think that there was more to my objections than just personal predilection.

First--I was never really able to buy into a 2500 year old druid who had all the sensibilities, maturity and perspective of a member of Generation Y. I understand that he is masquerading as a young, single, new age guy, but his interior voice is identical with his ruse, and this was not helped by the fact that Luke Daniels delivered the 1st person narration without any of the color or texture which might give us a sense of those 2500 years. There should be a serious and hard won understanding of the world there, and we need to hear it.

Second--Oberon the dog was often amusing and consistently cute. Cute is nice in children's literature, but it is a serious drawback when it becomes the entire raison d'etre of one of your two central characters. The reader did not help in this regard either, though his endearing, dimwitted voicing of Oberon seems to account for at least half of the rave in the reviews. Don't get me wrong, I think Oberon is a lot of fun and he often made me laugh while he was undercutting my belief and commitment to the story as a whole.

Finally, the tone of the book was just too light for me to be able to accept the graphic nature of much of the violence. The whole thing seemed to be caught between gory realism and just kidding, never really integrating the two. As a result, the juxtaposition was often jarring and a little unpleasant. I have read only one of the Dresden books, but my sense is that this is something Jim Butcher handles more successfully.

None of which is to say that this was not a fun listen. It was. Just not satisfying enough to move me to use a full credit to try another in the series.

Great first book

I don't usually write reviews, but I really enjoyed this book and figured I should. A very original concept, easy to follow, laugh out loud funny at times, and all together well written. The Narrator is amazing. Adding in a dog as a "talking" character can sometimes go wrong. But Oberon MAKES the book, well Luke Daniels voice of Oberon makes the book! Highly recommend it.

Cracker jack job of narration of a fun story

The Narration was finely nuanced and the accents chosen were well done; amazingly so for an American as I normally do not expect them to do accents as well as classically trained british actors The choice of voice for Oberon was just perfect.

The Story was well written and the World the author created was well drawn I look forward to listening to more of his work as so few mingle well plotted fantasy with deft touches of humor ( his feisty old Irish widow is a classic!)

Another totally 'awesome' urban fantasy!

In short if you liked 'Rivers of London' then you will really enjoy this too!
Hounded is a witty, funny steeped in mythology fast listen. The main character, Atticus is totally beleivable set in modern day USA, and his dog, an Irish Wolfhound called Oberon, is so full of life and funny, but without being naff!
Luke Daniels characterisation is amazing, I gave this one 5 stars, as I loved it, but would have given Ben Aaranovitch if I could have! Enjoy.