"Hexed" by Kevin Hearne

Hexed is the second book the "Iron Druid Chronicles" and continues pretty much right where Hounded leaves off. This is actually somewhat unique in the genre of urban fantasy. Usually between books, our heros get a much needed rest, and the next book takes place a month or year or more later. While there has been a brief respite, it's only about two weeks later, and it goes pretty much right into Atticus once again getting his butt kicked.

We only leave our characters for long enough to set a few things into motion. The results of Hounded are touched on right away. Atticus has an apprentice, who is off in North Carolina, fulfilling a promise. There is a treaty that is being worked on by Atticus' lawyers, and Oberon is still in need of a belly scratching and sausages.

 While Atticus is a great character, Oberon, his faithful wolfhound again steals every scene that he is in. Oberon has got to be the greatest companion animal in any series, ever. And let me tell you, I love Animal Companions. I first started reading books, like Anne McCaffery's Pern series, when I was very young. As the young are want to do, I had dreams and invisible animal companions. I loved my dog, but I would have given anything if she would have been able to actually communicate with me. From Dragons to Ghatti (Gayle Greeno) to Chosen (Mercedes Lackey), animal companions have always been one of my favorite tropes. Several of my own stories, as a younger version of myself, featured some sort of animal companion. There has, and probably always will be, that wondrous idea that you can mentally chat with your favorite animals.

Hearne's Oberon is such a delight. He's comic relief, because he sees the world through a dog's eyes. He's not a human trapped in animal form - he's a dog, he likes to eat sausages, and have his belly rubbed. He's intelligent, certainly, but the basic "animal" is still there.

*Warning - stop here if you have not yet read Hounded. And now, go read Hounded. It's awesome.

* Please note there are spoilers below if you haven't read Hounded first.

Okay, enough about Oberon. The story in Hexed  makes for a nice segue-way into the third book, Hammered. After the climax of the first book, Hounded, Atticus is now in high demand as a Godslayer, and everyone wants him to go after Thor - who is apparently the biggest dick in all of godhood. He has an apprenctice to deal with, a long dead witch in her head, who has gone off to get said witch out of her head and into the head of a coma patient whose soul has already fled. Atticus is working a treaty with the remaining witches of a local coven, and there is the demon touched land that Atticus feels is his duty to fix, since he was responsible for it getting blighted in the first place.

I did not like Hexed as well as I did Hounded. As I said, it feels like, we need a way to get Atticus to agree to kill Thor, and since he has no beef with him personally, now he owes two of his powerful allies a favor that both involve heading to Asgard and killing Thor. Since the third book is entitled Hammered, I fully expect this to be the subject of our next Atticus adventure. But don't get me wrong, this wasn't a bad book by any means. It does set up our next adventure in a very plausible way, it just seemed convenient that everything works out the way it does.

Still, I do look forward to reading Hammered, and the follow up books that will be out later this year (2012).