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 enlarge | Author: Ilona Andrews
Publisher: Ace
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $2.83
You Save: $4.16 (60%)
New (34) Used (13) from $2.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 2252
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.2 x 1
ISBN: 0441015832
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780441015832
ASIN: 0441015832
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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| Customer Reviews:
 A real page turner June 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book held my interest from page 1. It is a fast paced, interesting and very different Urban Fantasy. There are so many really creative characters and scenes - something is happening constantly. I couldn't put it down.
Not worse than first book in series June 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is not worse than the first one. The author stays true to her characters; very interesting read.
A little bit dark for my tastes and not enough romance. Hope, the next book will correct it, as it slowly progresses.
I was surprised to learn that the writer was born in Russia, and English is her second language. Good work
 Excellent sequel to Magic Bites June 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was very pleased with this second book in the Kate Daniels series. There has been positive character growth and the action was very fast paced and believable. I think the series can only get better. I love the dichotomy of tech Atlanta vs. magic Atlanta.
Best Urban Fantasy Ever June 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bloody Brilliant! Even better than the first one, and the first one was great. In this sequel to Magic Bites, Ilona Andrews ups the ante on world building and adds a layer of mythology. Best of all, Magic Burns has Heart. I don't mean romance - there is sexual tension between Kate and Curran but no romance yet. By Heart I mean that it tackles some of the big questions of the human condition. Ms. Andrews makes a compelling argument that there are somethings worth fighting for. That the life of one little girl is worth a thousand soldiers who might die trying to save her, and if it wasn't then this isn't a world worth living in. Violence has become such a common occurrence in our lives that we hardly bat an eye at it anymore. I appreciate Ms. Andrews taking the discussion to the next level and challenging her readers to think deeply about our blase acceptance of violence.
Mercenary Kate Daniels stumbles across a young starving street kid whose mother has disappeared in a coven spell-gone-horribly-wrong. She takes it upon herself to find the little girl's mother and ends up discovering a plot to unleash monsters from celtic mythology on the world. Kate is also enlisted to find maps of the city that were stolen from the Pack, to provide information for the People who want to control the new breed of undead that have appeared, and to obtain magic blood to save the witch Oracle. In the midst of all this, a Flare is coming; Once every seven years Magic runs rampant unleashing all sorts of monsters and madness. In the face of impossible odds, Kate gets by with a little help from her friends.
The heroine Kate is a tough cookie who, despite an argumentative nature, has a depth of character and understanding that makes her not only sympathetic to the reader, but also makes her someone to look up to; heroic in the true sense of the word. The villains are bent on world domination, and as such they are not multifaceted. More interesting are the secondary characters that help or hinder Kate in her quest. These actors illustrate the inner struggle to do the right thing in the face of horror and apocalyptic violence. Do we chose the easy way - every man for himself? Or do we risk everything against impossible odds for the honorable path? Among these fascinating secondary characters are Red, a young street kid, Curran, the leader of the shapeshifters, Ghastek, the vampire pilot, and Bran, mythic warrior.
In the first book I was a bit concerned about Curran in the role of potential "love-interest," but he's grown on me in this book. He's still a violent bastard, but he shows a bit of his softer side in protecting the little girl and showing a bit of gruff caring toward our intrepid heroine. I especially like his comment (p186):
"You're fun to play with. You make a good mouse....I was always kind of partial to toy mice." He smiled. "Sometimes they're filled with catnip. It's a nice bonus."
"I'm not filled with catnip." [said Kate]
"Let's find out."
The image of this 700 pound lion playing with a catnip toy is adorable. But then, I'm partial to cats.
Magic Burns is also full of Ilona Andrews' trademark lyrical descriptions. It's beautiful to read.
Twisted steel skeletons of once mighty skyscrapers jutted like bleached fossil bones from the debris. Here and there a lone half-eaten survivor struggled to remain upright, all but its last few stories destroyed. Shattered glass from hundreds of windows glittered among chunks of concrete, (p24).
And, of course, the world building is fabulous. I love the idea behind it: What would happen if magic took back the world from technology? From Ms. Andrews' FAQs on her website, but also in the book, I just can't find the page:
"Theory said that magic and tech used to coexist in a balance. Like the pendulum of a grandfather clock that barely moved, if at all. But then came the age of Man, and men are made of progress. They overdeveloped magic, pushing the pendulum further and further to one side until it came crashing down and started swinging back and forth, bringing with it tech waves.
And then in its turn, the technology oversaturated the world, helped once again by pesky Man, and the pendulum swung again, into the side of magic this time. The previous Shift from magic to tech took place somewhere around the start of the Iron age. The current Shift officially dawned almost thirty years ago. It began with a flare, and with each subsequent flare, more of our world succumbed to magic."
I thoroughly, completely, and totally recommend Magic Burns to EVERYONE. Read Magic Bites first. It's good. But this book is even better. I can't wait to read the 3rd book in the series, Magic Strikes, (2009 - noooo!!!!), and every single other book that Ms. Andrews gives us in the years to come.
And the ending is so very, very good. I just reread it and realized that I completely missed the best part. Subtle, I am not. I want you to read this book so that I can gush about it with someone. Pleeeaaaassseeeee. Reeeaaaadddd iiiiittttt. You will love it. I promise.
Yay!!!! It got better . . . . June 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
_Magic Burns_ is the second book in the Kate Daniels series, written by Ilona Andrews.
Kate is a trained warrior whose current job is liaison between the Order and the Mercenary Guild. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the few cities to survive the resurgence of magic in the early 2000s. The story takes place a few decades after magic reappeared. Kate is in her mid-20s when the story takes place.
(It would take too long to explain the world Kate lives in, so all I can say is please read the book. Ms. Andrews has created a really unique world and I loved reading the different ways that magic and tech mixed and interacted.)
Kate starts out the book hunting a pyromaniac, but as she keeps stumbling across some odd events that can't be overlooked -- both because of her own moral code and because the problems are things the Order would want information on anyway -- she becomes further entwined in a big nasty mess caused by some incompetent witches (and others).
Which brings up one of the things I like about Andrews' writing -- while Kate is a bit of a mouthy adolescent superhero herself, most of the other characters have real emotions, real ambitions, real anxieties, and make real mistakes. They are believable.
There is a love interest, but it's more anxiety and avoidance at this stage than anything real. Kate has a REALLY *BIG* secret in her past, which makes her very wary of trusting or becoming intimate with anyone.
In the end, things mostly work out, and there are hints that Kate is getting tired of hiding all the time. I am looking forward to future books in the series, as I think that will lead to some interesting events.
All in all, it was a very light and enjoyable read. I give it four stars.
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I also have to say I am VERY happy to see Ms. Andrews has changed some things from the first Kate Daniels book. _Magic Bites_ was a very interesting but deeply flawed series opening. I was torn after reading it because I wanted to see where Ms. Andrews took the series and characters, but at the same time I didn't want to wade through that much needless pain (from the overly-described villainous acts of the very sadistic bad guys) and needless stupidity (from Kate's uncontrolled mouth) in future books. Thankfully, Ms. Andrews has kept all the things I liked about the series (the setting, the secondary characters, Kate in her better moments, the mystery of Kate's past) and gotten rid of most of what I didn't like. I eagerly look forward to book 3.
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