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Hounded (with two bonus short stories): Book One of The Iron Druid Chronicles by [Kevin Hearne]

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Kevin Hearne

Hounded (with two bonus short stories): Book One of The Iron Druid Chronicles Kindle Edition

by Kevin Hearne (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

2,628 ratings

Book 1 of 9: Iron Druid Chronicles

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The first novel in the New York Times bestselling Iron Druid Chronicles—the hilarious, action-packed tales of a two-thousand-year-old Druid pursued by ancient gods in the modern world

“A page-turning and often laugh-out-loud-funny caper through a mix of the modern and the mythic.”—Ari Marmell, author of The Warlord’s Legacy

Atticus O’Sullivan is the last of the ancient druids. He has been on the run for more than two thousand years and he’s tired of it. The Irish gods who want to kill him are after an enchanted sword he stole in a first-century battle, and when they find him managing an occult bookshop in Tempe, Arizona, Atticus doesn’t want to uproot his life again. He just wants everything to end one way or another, but preferably the way in which he can continue to enjoy fish and chips.

He does have some small hope of survival: The Morrigan, the Irish Chooser of the Slain, is on his side, and so is Brighid, First Among the Fae. His lawyer is literally a bloodsucking vampire, and he has a loyal Irish wolfhound with opinions about poodles.

But he’s facing down some mighty enemies: Aenghus Óg, a vengeful Irish god, plus a coven of witches and even the local police. On top of all that, Aenghus has a direct line to the firepower of hell. Atticus will need all the luck of the Irish and more if he’s going to stay alive.

Don’t miss any of Kevin Hearne’s phenomenal Iron Druid Chronicles novels:
HOUNDED | HEXED | HAMMERED | TRICKED | TRAPPED | HUNTED | SHATTERED | STAKED

Print length

303 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Del Rey
Publication date

May 3, 2011
File size

4169 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hearne, a self-professed comic-book nerd, has turned his love of awesome dudes whacking mightily at evil villains into a superb urban fantasy debut. Staying alive for 2,000 years takes a great deal of cunning, and sexy super-druid Atticus O'Sullivan, currently holed up in the Arizona desert, has vexed a few VIPs along the way. High up on that list is Aenghus Óg, the Celtic god of love. It's not just that Aenghus wants his sword back—though it is a very nice magical sword—but that Atticus didn't exactly ask permission to take it. Atticus and his trusty sidekick, Irish wolfhound Oberon, make an eminently readable daring duo as they dodge Aenghus's minions and thwart his schemes with plenty of quips and zap-pow-bang fighting." --Publisher's Weekly, starred review

“A page-turning and often laugh-out-loud funny caper through a mix of the modern and the mythic.”—Ari Marmell, author of The Warlord’s Legacy

“Celtic mythology and an ancient Druid with modern attitude mix it up in the Arizona desert in this witty new fantasy series.”—Kelly Meding, author of Three Days to Dead

“Kevin Hearne breathes new life into old myths, creating a world both eerily familiar and startlingly original.”—Nicole Peeler, author of Tempest Rising

About the Author

Kevin Hearne is a middle-aged nerd who still enjoys his comic books and old-school heavy metal. He cooks tasty omelets, hugs trees, and paints miniature army dudes. He lives with his wife, daughter, and doggies in a wee cottage.

Review

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane.

Thank the Goddess I don’t look like a guy who met Galileo—or who saw Shakespeare’s plays when they first debuted or rode with the hordes of Genghis Khan. When people ask how old I am, I just tell them twenty-one, and if they assume I mean years instead of decades or centuries, then that can’t be my fault, can it? I still get carded, in fact, which any senior citizen will tell you is immensely flattering.

The young-Irish-lad façade does not stand me in good stead when I’m trying to appear scholarly at my place of business—I run an occult bookshop with an apothecary’s counter squeezed in the corner—but it has one outstanding advantage. When I go to the grocery store, for example, and people see my curly red hair, fair skin, and long goatee, they suspect that I play soccer and drink lots of Guinness. If I’m going sleeveless and they see the tattoos all up and down my right arm, they assume I’m in a rock band and smoke lots of weed. It never enters their mind for a moment that I could be an ancient Druid—and that’s the main reason why I like this look. If I grew a white beard and got myself a pointy hat, oozed dignity and sagacity and glowed with beatitude, people might start to get the wrong—or the right—idea.

Sometimes I forget what I look like and I do something out of character, such as sing shepherd tunes in Aramaic while I’m waiting in line at Starbucks, but the nice bit about living in urban America is that people tend to either ignore eccentrics or move to the suburbs to escape them.
That never would have happened in the old days. People who were different back then got burned at the stake or stoned to death. There is still a downside to being different today, of course, which is why I put so much effort into blending in, but the downside is usually just harassment and discrimination, and that is a vast improvement over dying for the common man’s entertainment.

Living in the modern world contains quite a few vast improvements like that. Most old souls I know think the attraction of modernity rests on clever ideas like indoor plumbing and sunglasses. But for me, the true attraction of America is that it’s practically godless. When I was younger and dodging the Romans, I could hardly walk a mile in Europe without stepping on a stone sacred to some god or other. But out here in Arizona, all I have to worry about is the occasional encounter with Coyote, and I actually rather like him. (He’s nothing like Thor, for one thing, and that right there means we’re going to get along fine. The local college kids would describe Thor as a “major asshat” if they ever had the misfortune to meet him.)

Even better than the low god density in Arizona is the near total absence of faeries. I don’t mean those cute winged creatures that Disney calls “fairies”; I mean the Fae, the Sidhe, the actual descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann, born in Tír na nÓg, the land of eternal youth, each one of them as likely to gut you as hug you. They don’t dig me all that much, so I try to settle in places they can’t reach very easily. They have all sorts of gateways to earth in the Old World, but in the New World they need oak, ash, and thorn to make the journey, and those trees don’t grow together too often in Arizona. I have found a couple of likely places, like the White Mountains near the border with New Mexico and a riparian area near Tucson, but those are both over a hundred miles away from my well-paved neighborhood near the university in Tempe. I figured the chances of the Fae entering the world there and then crossing a treeless desert to look for a rogue Druid were extremely small, so when I found this place in the late nineties, I decided to stay until the locals grew suspicious.

It was a great decision for more than a decade. I set up a new identity, leased some shop space, hung out a sign that said THIRD EYE BOOKS AND HERBS (an allusion to Vedic and Buddhist beliefs, because I thought a Celtic name would bring up a red flag to those searching for me), and bought a small house within easy biking distance.

I sold crystals and Tarot cards to college kids who wanted to shock their Protestant parents, scores of ridiculous tomes with “spells” in them for lovey-dovey Wiccans, and some herbal remedies for people looking to make an end run around the doctor’s office. I even stocked extensive works on Druid magic, all of them based on Victorian revivals, all of them utter rubbish, and all vastly entertaining to me whenever I sold any of them. Maybe once a month I had a serious magical customer looking for a genuine grimoire, stuff you don’t mess with or even know about until you’re fairly accomplished. I did much more of my rare book business via the Internet—another vast improvement of modern times.

But when I set up my identity and my place of business, I did not realize how easy it would be for someone else to find me by doing a public-records search on the Internet. The idea that any of the Old Ones would even try it never occurred to me—I thought they’d try to scry me or use other methods of divination, but never the Internet—so I was not as careful in choosing my name as I should have been. I should have called myself John Smith or something utterly sad and plain like that, but my pride would not let me wear a Christian name. So I used O’Sullivan, the Anglicized version of my real surname, and for everyday usage I employed the decidedly Greek name of Atticus. A supposedly twenty-one-year-old O’Sullivan who owned an occult bookstore and sold extremely rare books he had no business knowing about was enough information for the Fae to find me, though.

On a Friday three weeks before Samhain, they jumped me in front of my shop when I walked outside to take a lunch break. A sword swished below my knees without so much as a “Have at thee!” and the arm swinging it pulled its owner off balance when I jumped over it. I crunched a quick left elbow into his face as he tried to recover, and that was one faery down, four to go.

Thank the Gods Below for paranoia. I classified it as a survival skill rather than a neurotic condition; it was a keen knife’s edge, sharpened for centuries against the grindstone of People Who Want to Kill Me. It was what made me wear an amulet of cold iron around my neck, and cloak my shop not only with iron bars, but also with magical wards designed to keep out the Fae and other undesirables. It was what made me train in unarmed combat and test my speed against vampires, and what had saved me countless times from thugs like these.

Perhaps thug is too heavy a word for them; it connotes an abundance of muscle tissue and a profound want of intellect. These lads didn’t look as if they had ever hit the gym or heard of anabolic steroids. They were lean, ropy types who had chosen to disguise themselves as cross-country runners, bare-chested and wearing nothing but maroon shorts and expensive running shoes. To any passerby it would look as if they were trying to beat me up with brooms, but that was just a glamour they had cast on their weapons. The pointy parts were in the twigs, so if I was unable to see through their illusions, I would have been fatally surprised when the nice broom stabbed my vitals. Since I could see through faerie glamours, I noticed that two of my remaining four assailants carried spears, and one of them was circling around to my right. Underneath their human guises, they looked like the typical faery—that is, no wings, scantily clad, and kind of man-pretty like Orlando Bloom’s Legolas, the sort of people you see in salon product advertisements. The ones with spears stabbed at me simultaneously from the sides, but I slapped the tips away with either wrist so that they thrust past me to the front and back. Then I lunged inside the guard of the one to the right and clotheslined him with a forearm to his throat. Tough to breathe through a crushed windpipe. Two down now; but they were quick and deft, and their dark eyes held no gleam of mercy.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004J4WN0I
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey (May 3, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 3, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4169 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 303 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #33,680 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #259 in Contemporary Fantasy Fiction
- #557 in Fantasy Adventure Fiction
- #1,212 in Fantasy Action & Adventure

Customer Reviews:
2,628 ratings

About the author

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Kevin Hearne

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KEVIN HEARNE hugs trees, pets doggies, and rocks out to heavy metal. He also thinks tacos are a pretty nifty idea. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling series the Iron Druid Chronicles, the Seven Kennings trilogy that begins with A PLAGUE OF GIANTS, and co-author of the Tales of Pell with Delilah S. Dawson.

Customer reviews

5 star		69%
4 star		20%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Dire Wolf

Harry Dresden and Mercy Thompson had a baby ...

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019

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... but it died.

Our protagonist is a 2100 year old druid who wields a magic sword, sports magic tattoos, wears a magic bracelet, kills supernatural assassins with his bare hands, summons elementals, beds a goddess, makes a pact with a demon, gains immortality, communicates telepathically with his dog, transforms into a wolfhound, rides a magic sled (pulled by magic stags), spars with a viking vampire, consorts with werewolf lawyers and murders a possessed park ranger.

And then, in chapter two, things get downright silly.

The author was obviously inspired by the worlds created Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs, too bad he wasn't inspired by their writing.

24 people found this helpful

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Chris Hansen

Best Fantasy series I’ve read in years!

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2018

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I read a lot. In the past, sometimes 50-75 books each year. If I don’t like a book I will stop reading it; life is to short to make yourself miserable.

The good books, the ones that years later you are still talking about them, are few and far between. “Good Omens”, “The Return of the King”, “To Green Angel Tower” and the like are all novels that I sat down to read ... and didn’t get up until I finished the book. (Tad Williams nearly killed me from lack of sleep)

“Hounded” is one of those books. It lays forth a tapestry of characters and events without reading like a history book. The characters are fully formed, even the peripheral ones, so when they show up again they feel like a friend.

The characters change. They grow. They falter. Sometimes, as in reality, they die and you mourn them, you miss them.

The only complaint I have (and it is such a petty one) is that the cover doesn’t match the character painted inside. See? I told you it was petty.

28 people found this helpful

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Charra Hammett

Good story, writing is Subpar

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2019

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I thought the storyline was decent and had a lot of potential but the writing showed the writer was new with the cadence of the conversations and lack of character development.

Atticus is a Druid with powers of the earth and a dog named Oberon who has lived in hiding for 2000+ years ever since he took a magical sword from a God of Love named Aenghus Óg and Aenghus Og wants it back. That’s the basic story. *SPOILER ALERT*

1. Holes in the story - Oberon kills a human Park Ranger after going on a short hunt with Atticus and a different God, Flidais, because said God bewitches him(Oberon) into killing the man for startling her, but she was supposed to be there to warn Atticus about Aenghus Og being on his way. This sets off a chain of events where the police are trying to find Oberon because somehow the police have figured out the dog DNA on the body belonged to an Irish Wolfhound even though its said/written that it’s not possible to determine dog breed by dog DNA. How would Aenghus even know about the hunt to be able to set up Atticus and Oberon when Flidais and Atticus were in bed when they discussed going on a hunt and she never left so she couldn’t have told Aenghus to set a trap. It doesn’t say the Gods can talk mind to mind. It’s just too nicely set up without explanation. And Flidais is supposed to be helping him but then she’s not but then later she is and again not and again is.

2. The switching back and forth of the loyalties of the 3 different Gods (Flidais, The Morrigan & Brighet) and then also The Witches was just confusing. Not only was there back and forth by Flidais above but also The Morrigan and The Witches and the God Brighid. It was too much confusion to make sense of. One unexpected person or group who betrays the main character would have been enough but it was like the writer tried to add too much into the story and didn’t do a good enough job explaining it or letting the main character cast doubt on them so you never felt like oh they are good guys or bad guys. One second you believed that person/group was good. The next it was like huh? And in the end it was explained offhandedly like we should have known the gods are tricky and witches can’t be trusted. But maybe one witch. And her couple of sisters. *ugh*

3. The sex - is this book supposed to have sex in it or not? Because there are little hints of it that seem like there would be some sex scenes with Atticus and then lamely left EVERYTHING to the imagination. Either do it or don’t. And what’s with Granuaile? Hot redhead that Atticus has been lusting after for an undetermined amount of time comes off as a bit of an airhead who might be smart but it never really goes anywhere or makes you feel like she may or may not be a real love interest. Instead Atticus ends up with meaningless sex and getting hit on constantly by the female Gods and you’re confused as to where this is all leading. Does he need a love interest? Prolly not but then why Granuaile?

4. Character development. None of the side characters are built enough into the story to make you want to love them and continue on. The dog is kinda funny at times but even he lacks something. The widow is pretty cool but again there just isn’t a connection there. I read so many books and when you pick up a book and just love the characters and want more by the end of the book - then you know the writer did something right. Maybe after reading a few books I might feel this way about Atticus and Oberon but I just didn’t get that feeling in this book. Good potential but not enough.

Overall it lacks the depth needed for a good novel series. Hopefully the writer gets better throughout the series. I most likely won’t read any more in this series.

16 people found this helpful

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Bursar

Very enjoyable.

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2018

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I really enjoyed this book, and went on to buy the second. It was recommended to me by a follower on Twitter. There were really only two things I found less than par, and both are very subjective, so they don't affect my rating. First, I found the comedic relief between the MC and his dog to be pretty cheesy and leaned on too hard. I found the vampire funnier, and I didn't get the impression the vampire was supposed to be all that funny. I suppose the dog conversations fall pretty far into typical 'guy humor,' which isn't my taste, but obviously plenty of people love it or it wouldn't be so popular. Second nitpick, all the names and different mythological characters were really hard for me to keep track of. I will freely admit that most of my familiarity with mythology if from Greek and Roman mythology, so if you are more familiar with Irish and other mythologies, that probably won't be too big a deal for you. The main characters were well fleshed out and entertaining, the flirting and sexual tension was perfect, the plot was engaging, the world building was well developed (a MAJOR pet peeve of mine), and the writing was pretty good. Definitely recommended!

10 people found this helpful

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Angry Potato

Just.. Bad

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2020

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Purchased on November 3, 2018
Finished on June 25, 2020
Last push to the finish this was fueled by insomnia and the extreme boredom and mixed with occasional terror that the novel corona virus brought to my life...
It is bad, everything in everyone star review I read to know I am not alone in my disappointment is fair and accurate in portraying this books flaws... Many were a better read than this book.
It might be a bit petty but I amount all of the valid complaints of mary sue protagonists, misogyny and bad writting I think one thing got left out so far.
He cannot tell the difference between a pot head or a crack head... maybe meth head.. couldn't even be bothered to sterotype them as hippies.
I don't even like potheads.. But this book hates them.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Bazz Freeman

A great immersive fantasy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2017

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I've been reading SF/F for a long time. I started at age 11 and I'm now 60. In all that time I've learned what I like pretty much. One thing that a good Fanatsy story has to do is make the suspension of disbelief seems natural. It's very hard and a lot of fantasists fail. their stories are not bad, exactly. they are often very well written. However the harder that supsension is, the longer it takes to 'get into' the story.

So what makes a good fantasy? Humour. I don't mean that stories need to be comedic. if you look at real life people humour is always present. if you are in a profession that is tense with great responsibility, like EMTs or Firemen, soldiers, pilots and so on, you'll alwys find humour because it reduces tension. Real people make light of situations.

And so we come to the Iron Druid. a 2100-year-old iron-age man. he is hunted by gods as well as mundane police at various stages.
His appearance is that of a young 20-something but his mind, and thus the internal dialog we hear, is 2100 years old. So his attitudes are necessarily more primitive, though given that he has lived so long, those primitive attitudes have unergone some refining and he embraces most of the modern lifestyle choices.

Hmour is ever present though. In conversations with his dog, Oberon, with the werewolves and vampires and humans. It makes it seem real and thus very easy to submerse yourself in the caharacters and environment. Thats not to say there are no serious action scenes.

There are no super gory long drawn out posturing battles. He's an iron-age fighter, so the idea is, kill them before they kill you. there are no rules.
It's very refreshing.

The quality of writing is escellent throughout. Good characterisation, a plot that you can see has run for millenia and is likely to continue.
The treatment of the druids, history of the old Irish religion, vampires, werewolves, norse gods, graeco-roman gods and sundry others are logically consistent and feel real. And that is what makes a Great Fantasy.

I really recommend getting the entire series (it's discounted) and also the Audobooks as that helps immensely with the pronounciation.

Enjoy yourself with this, and may harmony find you.

16 people found this helpful

Ms. Theresa M. Derwin

Hounds, Wolves, Witches and gods

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2020

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I've heard of this series added years back but hadn't taken the time to start reading until now. And I'm glad I started.
Atticus is a 2100 year old magic bearing druid who runs a book and herb tea shop in Arizona. He's been on the run from a god for centuries since stealing his mythical sword fragarach during battle, though the God in question Aenghus, was using it for destruction.
Atticus, as a druid, is about earth and healing. However that doesn't mean he's not dangerous.
This urban fantasy combining nordic and Irish mythology, adventure and sardonic wit, finds Atticus being hunted by the god, but he has allies. His lawyers are both Vikings - one a werewolf, one a vampire, the Morrigan promises not to take him if he dies, there's a very attractive yet unusual barmaid set to help him, and a lovely old Irish whiskey drinking neighbour pensioner who helps him bury bodies.
Best of all though is best buddy Oberon - his Irish wolfhound rescue, who lives sausages and poodles.
Hearne writes the dialogue between the two friends - magic of course - and Oberon is funny, sarcastic but also so loving and adorable.
Atticus is cheeky at times but also honourable.
It's a great cast of characters that fans of Jim Butcher or Kim Harrison will love.
And given the amount of research, which is evident but not info dumped, it works well.

2 people found this helpful

Ella

DNF at 27%

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 7, 2021

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I simply did not particularly care what was happening in this book. However, I do think I was already going into a bit of a reading slump when I started it. Basically, there was some stuff going on that I wanted to be distracted from, so I looked up 'funny adult fantasy' on google and saw a couple of recommendations for this series and decided to go for it. In the end though, I highlighted one quote in the first 27% (the idea being I highlighted funny parts) and I was not particularly entertained. I never really felt any desire to pick up my iPad and read this, even though I don't think it's a bad book, I just wasn't interested - hence the DNF.

John O'sullivan

2000 years of running can drain you!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2017

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I'm nearly up to date with my Jim butcher, Dresden files books and I got nervous!, what am I going to read when these are done!
So, I started doing some searches, books like.........
Got a lot of results! Mostly stuff I've read and a lot of stuff I know isn't relevant.
However I spot this gem in the pile and delve deeper. An Irish Druid! The last Druid! And he's an o'sullivan?!!
I couldn't turn back now! What an excellent name choice(truly inspired)
Then I realised the whole pantheon of Irish gods and myths are thrown in too, with Norse werewolves and Icelandic vampires and polish witches? Not to mention mellow Irish widows and smart ass Irish wolfhounds! With a yarn fit for a bard tying the whole thing together.
Overall a quick action packed adrenaline ride from start to finish! Ive got another great series to enjoy😀

4 people found this helpful

Emilija Stalaza

... had a strong first person voice which I really enjoyed. It was as if the protagonist was relating ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 4, 2017

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This book had a strong first person voice which I really enjoyed. It was as if the protagonist was relating the story to the reader in a conversation, as if he were telling his best anecdotes with lots of personality. The story line had new twists on the old Gods and Goddesses too, even if the witch story line was more predictable, involving covens, mysteries and wooded battles. It's a thrilling introduction to a new chapter with high-paced action and consistent character building. I especially liked the introduction to druid magic and the unique take on the addition of this to the magical world.

My only other slight irritation was that occasionally the protagonist could come across as very male - not ever sexist, but leaning in the direction of that, and that risked losing my sympathy in places. I think much of this came from him being long-lived and occasionally patronising and unsympathetic. Still, I'll definitely read the next one!