A Goodbye to Kate Daniels: MAGIC TRIUMPHS

The Kate Daniels Series comes to an end in the final book, Magic Triumphs. The world created by the Illona Andrews writing team has been nothing short of mesmerizing. They’ve created a vibrant world where magic and technology exist simultaneously separate, yet parallel to each other. For me, this is one of the biggest selling points for any fantasy book — the magic system. Does it make sense? Are there clear-cut rules and limitations? Most importantly, is it original? The Kate Daniels series passes all these metrics with flying colors. The reason so many fantasy (specifically urban fantasy series) seem to clone each other is that they tend to not only borrow characters and plots from each other, they often end up with similar magic systems. Kate Daniels doesn’t fall into this trap. Only Brandon Sanderson has more inventive, interesting, and original systems of magic. The Kate Daniels Series The Kate Daniels world contains almost every sort of magical being you can imagine: sorcerers & witches, druids & dragons, vampires & Weres and everything in between. None of these pairings feel forced, campy or out of place. Each species has its own distinct place in this world, they all follow the same set of rules (in terms of the overall magic system) and it all flows together seamlessly. Too many times when authors attempt to add “others” to their established magical worlds, the narrative starts to quickly fall apart (looking at you Sookie Stackhouse). But the Illona Andr…