Lilith Saintcrow
Paperback | Pages: 403 pages Rating: 3.8 | 11987 Users | 666 Reviews
Declare Books Conducive To Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine #1)
| Original Title: | Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine, #1) |
| ISBN: | 0446616702 (ISBN13: 9780446616706) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Dante Valentine #1 |
| Characters: | Dante Valentine, Vardimal Santino |
Ilustration Supposing Books Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine #1)
Just as every cop is a criminalAnd all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
cause I'm in need of some restraint
I blame Buffy for the rash of ass-kicking, smart-talking, bitchy female vampire slayers and the legions of sidekicks who inexplicably give them unconditional love.
I don't mean to imply that loving Buffy herself was inexplicable. Buffy was something special. Even when she was bitchy, she was prone to saying things like, "I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking." Even as she was touted as "the blonde who strikes back" in gender studies courses and pop culture crit, she was busily disarming our heroic archetypes with plain, good-old goofiness. And girliness.
Her imitators, as often as not, miss the point. Once, in a discussion about why there's so much bad writing in high fantasy, a friend of mine said:
John Clute, the one unquestionably brilliant critic in sf/f (when you can understand what the hell he is saying) has all kinds of interesting things to say about the difference between Tolkien and his imitators—being able to distinguish between Tolkien and Brooks is the minimum standard for any critical apparatus applied to the genre, in his opinion. One of the observations he makes is about the role of time and change. Tolkien’s world is, among many other things, an attempt to come to grips with the industrial revolution, and everything in Middle Earth is constantly twisting in the corrosive stream of time. The imitators tend to fetishize the tokens of the bucolic world—sword, cloak, stew—and the actions play out in a bubble world immune to THAT kind of change—real change. In a sense, Middle Earth is saved neither for Frodo nor for us.
I think there's something similar -- if not as widespread or profound -- going on with Buffy in the sort of fetishization of the female vampire slayer, the victim who strikes back, that misses the point of who Buffy was and what she represented.
But for better or for worse, an army of pseudo-Buffys, from Anita Blake to Cassandra Palmer to Rachel Morgan to (the colorfully named Lilith Saintcrow's) Dante Valentine have descended upon us. They all have handsome men of the demon/vampire/werewolf persuasion pining after them, and often it's pretty difficult to pinpoint why.
WORKING FOR THE DEVIL isn't really a paranormal romance (the romance part is extremely subtle and not the focus of the book), but I read it anyway because I thought it might have useful elements of the sort we're looking for. Dante Valentine is a necromantic bounty hunter, who gets hired by Lucifer himself to hunt down a rogue demon who's escaped from Hell. He assigns his eldest son, Japhrimel, to protect her.
That's really all you need to know about the plot. Battles, confusion, chase scenes, and the requisite ass-kicking all ensue.
Saintcrow alternately scored and lost points with me for her setting: an Earth that simultaneously pings the futuristic and alternate-history tropes. Sometimes it works quite well, and sometimes she seems to have changed details or place names simply for the sake of changing them. But her settings have distinctive feels, and I'm a sucker for a good sense of place. Hell, in Saintcrow's imagination, is probably the most distinctive and fascinating fictional land I've been to yet: alien, excruciating, and as incomprehensible as you'd expect it to be. But the author seems to understand the difference between mysterious and merely confusing, and stays safely on the right side of that line.
The best part of the story, for me, was the delicately drawn relationship between Dante and her reluctant demon guardian. Dante dislikes him, but comes to rely upon and trust him gradually, and the narration manages to clue the reader in on their growing attraction before Dante realizes it herself without making her seem stupid.
Dante herself is a bit hard to take at times (and gets worse in the following books). She's harsh toward friends and enemies alike, abuses her sidekicks, dishes it out but can't take it, and her witty observations usually seem forced.
But the books move along at a terrific clip and the supporting characters are interesting enough to make up for the fact that the heroine's a harridan. Would I have found it as engaging if I hadn't been stuck at SeaTac waiting for a flight to Milwaukee that had been delayed for five hours? Hard to say, but it was fun in the same way your average action flick is fun, and at the time that was good enough for me.
Itemize About Books Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine #1)
| Title | : | Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine #1) |
| Author | : | Lilith Saintcrow |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 403 pages |
| Published | : | March 1st 2006 by Warner Books (NY) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Urban Fantasy. Paranormal. Demons. Romance. Magic |
Rating About Books Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine #1)
Ratings: 3.8 From 11987 Users | 666 ReviewsCommentary About Books Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine #1)
Just as every cop is a criminalAnd all the sinners saintsAs heads is tailsJust call me Lucifercause I'm in need of some restraintI blame Buffy for the rash of ass-kicking, smart-talking, bitchy female vampire slayers and the legions of sidekicks who inexplicably give them unconditional love.I don't mean to imply that loving Buffy herself was inexplicable. Buffy was something special. Even when she was bitchy, she was prone to saying things like, "I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking." Even asJust as every cop is a criminalAnd all the sinners saintsAs heads is tailsJust call me Lucifercause I'm in need of some restraintI blame Buffy for the rash of ass-kicking, smart-talking, bitchy female vampire slayers and the legions of sidekicks who inexplicably give them unconditional love.I don't mean to imply that loving Buffy herself was inexplicable. Buffy was something special. Even when she was bitchy, she was prone to saying things like, "I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking." Even as
This is possibly the worse book I've had the misfortune to read. I wrote a (very) long review for Amazon about how terrible this book was, but that review has disappeared into the ether after I submitted it and it went for 'review'. I think it was longer than some essays I've written. Suffice to say I don't have the energy to do that again. But the key points:* Poor, poor writing style including basic grammatical mistakes* Vastly unlikeable or sympathetic 'heroine'* Plot holes you could drive a
A very good start in an uf series!
Loved this book! I cried at the end, really well written and engrossing. NEXT!!
This one fell flat for me. There was too much magic, for one thing. Sorting through the jargon reminded me of trying to read cyberpunk. I prefer a subtle touch - urban fantasy that's a little more grounded in reality.The writing was also a little repetitive; for example, I found myself counting how many times Japhrimel told Dante to "Breathe. Just Breathe."I did like the author's voice, and there was potential in the Dante/Japhrimel relationship, but it didn't go anywhere beyond: "I have every
"Carrying a sword on the subway does tend to give you a certain amount of space, even on crowded hovertrains."Oh, how I adore an ass-kicking female protagonist!Working for the Devil is the first book of five in the Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow. This urban fantasy takes place in the near future on Earth. Magic has replaced all religion and people with psi abilities are the new normal. These magic users are licensed by the government and in high demand. Especially Danny Valentine, a
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