I was in the embarrassing situation of having Larry Correia as a Facebook friend but never having read any of his stuff, even though he seemed to have his head on pretty straight. So I remedied that by downloading Hard Magic, Book One of the Grimnoir Chronicles series. It’s pretty good.

The story is set in the 1930s, in an alternate universe where people with magical powers (known as Actives) starting appearing spontaneously among the population sometime in the mid-1800s. This led to some changes in the world – primarily in the balance of power. World War I was ended by the Peace Ray, an invention of Tesla’s, resulting in the virtual annihilation of Berlin, which became a miserable city of zombies. Russia was defeated magically in the Russo-Japanese War, making Japan the dominant power in the east. It’s known now as the Imperium, and is effectively controlled by a ruthless magician.

In the atmosphere of complacency permitted by the Peace Ray, only a small order of Actives, the Grimnoir Knights, carries on an asymmetrical resistance under the leadership of Gen. Pershing, John Moses Browning, and others. This book centers on two new recruits – Jake Sullivan, an ex-con who worked for the FBI for a while but was cheated by J. Edgar Hoover, and Faye Vierra, an adopted child raised by a secret Grimnoir Knight on a farm in the San Fernando Valley of California. Jake and Faye are two of the most talented Actives in the world, and all their powers will be needed when the Imperium makes its sneak attack.

The characters were very good, very believable in relation to the supernatural situations. In general the values were good as well (Correia is a Mormon), although there is some rough language. Lots of violence.

I look forward to reading the second novel in the series, Spellbound.