manga: Fullmetal Alchemist CH 93

( spoilers )

The Iron Hunt by Marjorie M. Liu

A long time ago, demons and other monsters walked the world, until a joint venture between gods and hunters locked them away. Now, though, the gods are gone (as far as anyone knows) the veil locking the demons away is coming apart, and there’s only one hunter left.

The hunter is Maxine Kiss, the last in a line of hunters stretching back thousands of years. By day, the demons bound to her family take on the form of tattoos on her body and create armor, by night, they come alive and help her fight. The only problem is that the demons are passed down from mother to daughter, and that when the demons move on to the next generation, the mother is almost immediately killed by the monsters she’s no longer protected from.

This is Liu’s first Urban Fantasy book, though her Dirk & Steele books are generally pretty close to it already. There’s an obvious attempt to separate this from her romance novels, with mixed results. Unlike most UF heroines, Maxine is not torn between two Others or angsting about her love life. She has a stable, happy relationship with a genuinely nice and accepting guy. Not the judgmental guy who holds her to ridiculous standards or the one who’s supposedly the better option but doesn’t respect her or one who keeps secrets, etc. etc. (can you tell I’m jaded about UF male love interests and supposed “nice guys”?) This, though, is something I’ve come to expect (and appreciate) in Liu’s books.

Unfortunately, Maxine herself didn’t grab me the way Liu’s other heroines have. I like her, and think she’s a step up from a lot of the UF heroines out there, but something about her never really quite grabbed me. That, however, may be a result of my loving the heroines of her romance novels so much, and Liu clearly trying to set this series (though everything that needs to be wrapped up is, this is clearly the beginning of a series) apart.

Though I didn’t love it as much as I expected to, this hits a lot of my storytelling kinks. Tattoos that are not only significant, but are also living. A stable, established romantic relationship. Hereditary power with dark consequences. A Mythic approach to the world. Deities in the modern world. Etc.

( cut for length )

So, not as good as I had hoped, but still pretty interesting.