[Book Review] Bottle Demon

Bottle Demon (Eric Carter #6) / Stephen Blackmoore

Previously Reviewed:

• Fire Season (Eric Carter #4)

Confession time first.  I didn't realize I had missed a book between Fire Season and this one.  Which left me a tad bit confused about The Whole "Being Dead" Thing.

For those new to the series, I very much recommend starting at the beginning with Dead Things.  Eric fits in well among a line up of literary contemporaries such as Sandman Slim or Harry Dresden, there's even something for fans of Preacher but pulling on Mexican mythologies (I'm going general here rather than accidently indicate the wrong pre-colonial culture) rather than Christian.  It's a dark urban fantasy featuring a necromancer who has a penchant for falling into problems above his weight class, a tendency to mouth off rather than play politics, and has a dry sense of humor.

One thing that Blackmoore does well with this series is in effect keep it "small."  The cast does grow and change, Eric needs to travel, but so far the core story is tight and personal.  Some of this may be due to the sheer lethality of the situations he's in, limiting the effective cast size, but it's also in the story's focus.  By their very nature, many of the plots and locations take us inwards not just outwards.  Decisions and actions taken before Eric was born coming due, and in ways that force him to confront unpleasant truths.

As I said at the start, I accidently skipped the middle book, Ghost Money, but the necessary particulars were woven into the story to keep me on the right narrative path.  The arc from Fire Season to Bottle Demon is tightly knit, seeds planted in book four coming to fruition two books later.  As I mentioned earlier though, the big thing is the story keeps things personal in the details and in the horror.  We have our magic and mayhem, but at it's core we have weighing of choices and sacrifices, and paying the cost of ones decisions.

Excellent continuation of the series.

Advance Reader Copy courtesy of DAW (Penguin RandomHouse) in exchange for an honest review; changes may exist between galley and the final edition.