Shotgun Sorceress | ||||||||
Lucy A. Snyder | ||||||||
Del Rey, 326 pages | ||||||||
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A review by John Enzinas
This one picks up where the last one left off, with the titular hero, Jessie Shimmer, coming to terms with the fact
that her hand has been replaced with demonic plasma and she's just killed a couple of extremely powerful
creatures. Just as she's wondering if maybe her flaming hand is just some kind of gift, she discovers that she now
feels the death (and other memories) of any formerly living creature she touches and having an orgasm causes her
hand to spray demonic napalm everywhere. This does not do much for her mood.
From there the story moves forward, closing off some of the loose ends from the last book and bringing in some
new ones like Jessie's supposedly dead Father and previously unknown brother. She makes her peace with the local
magistrates but, after the meeting, the Virtii (Spirit Lords) arrive and chase her through a portal to
Chuchillo, Texas where a demon is trying to uplift itself into a death god and has found a way to suppress both
fire and magic. Here is where the story gets really ugly.
There's all of the usual ugly that one would expect in a story like this, from soul stealing and zombification to
dealing with having to kill demon controlled meat puppets that used to be your friends. There's also psychotic
cold blooded murder, sexual abuse, graphic violent rape, incest and child abuse. If these are things you find
triggering, this is not the book for you. While it was graphic, it was, thankfully, not gratuitous and that's
the main reason I am willing to call this a good book in spite of the dark and the ugly. It's a good read, but
a difficult read because of this. The story doesn't end with this book. It's clear that Snyder expects to
continue this story for at least one more book and, while it leaves a number of threads hanging, it ties up
enough to give the book a good stopping point. Thankfully, this keeps readers such as myself from becoming too
frustrated waiting for the next one.
John Enzinas reads frequently and passionately. In his spare time he plays with swords. |
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