The Fire King (Dirk & Steele, Book 9) [Mass Market Paperback]

A 3000-year-old, hunky shifter and a special woman wounded physically and emotionally make for an engrossing read. "The Fire King" is Marjorie M. Liu's latest in her 'Dirk & Steele' series and I loved it. Each of her books, at least those in this series, dig down behind the differences in her characters whether they're shifter or human and draw on the feelings and emotions that are present in each of them.

Soria is a human with something extra--the ability to understand and speak any language, as long as she is in the presence of a native speaker of that language. One year ago she suffered a horrible betrayal and lost her right arm. Since then she has barricaded herself in her apartment...until a strange pair bring her a new mission from Dirk & Steele. Imagine her surprise when her new mission turns out to be a 3000-year-old fairy tale...a chimera. The product of two different shifters, something that is supposed to be impossible. Now she and the chimera are on the run and Soria isn't sure who is friend and who is enemy.

Karr was the warlord of the shifters from a time when Egyptians and Hittites ruled. He sacrificed himself to save his people, so what is he doing alive now? And who is this woman who appears to be the only one who can understand and speak with him? Is she enemy? A spy? Again and again she appears to help him during their escape and flight...but the more Karr learns, the more unsure he becomes of who is or should be an enemy.

Liu does a wonderful job of making her paranormal characters human. She brings out their hopes, fears, happiness, and disappointments and I, for one, can't get enough of it. Each of these books can be read as a stand-alone, but each also furthers an overarching storyline that continues to evolve with each novel.

"The Fire King" has action, romance, hot sex, mystery, and magic. The story rolls out as smoothly as my favorite chocolate and the characters become people I want to know more about and want to see happy. My only real beef is that she doesn't write fast enough!

Liu's books are getting redundant. Really. As another reviewer has already said, it's a basic copy-and-paste job on the plots. If you want to know what the basic plot is, go read his/her review. It's pretty darn accurate. It seems that she's not putting as much effort into the quality of her works, and is just trying to crank them out for the editor. Her first five or six books are in among my favorites ever, but I find myself not enjoying her later books. The plot is driven more by the poor emotionally-wounded main characters than by any active events. Instead of a book being fun to get into, I find myself struggling to understand what Liu is trying to convey. In the Fire King, I found many holes that I couldn't get around enough to enjoy it, especially regarding plot. I feel that Liu is writing one thing, hoping her readers understand it, and her audience is getting something completely different out of it- quite unlike her old books, which were excellent in the pure simplicity of the story, leaving room for a lot of character development. Now, maybe I'm biased, since Dean is by far my favorite of her characters, but you still don't find anyone like Dela or Artur in her newer books. I'm especially disappointed that Liu doesn't bring back old favorite characters. The only reoccuring character seems to be Serena, for whom I didn't care much to begin with. All the old loveable people have disappeared. Sad day. So, I recommend borrowing The Fire King from the library or waiting til it's on the bargain rack before rushing out and buying it. My mistake. Liu's writing is still good, but doesn't come close to living up to its old reputation.

It's been about a year since I have read a Dirk & Steel novel, and it certainly showed as I read this book. I just couldn't get into the characters. Soria had a huge chip on her shoulder since she lost her arm ... but she's still totally badass? You really have to have read the prequel to this book to really get where Soria is coming from ... if a prequel was written, that is. As a standalone its extremely confusing. If a forward had been written in the front of the book to explain things, or maybe a Dirk & Steel glossary saying who some characters were, etc. Those who have been following the series would get into it quick enough. However I felt the magnetism between the two main characters really rushed and insubstantial.

I thought The Wild Road, book 8, was 10 times better with plot and story progression. Personally I think Ms. Liu might have rushed this Dirk & Steel novel, or was more distracted with it. She may have had too many projects on her plate at one time, writing The Iron Hunt and her comic. Since Iron Hunt has gotten much more book publicity (that I have seen online) I think that project is her "baby" right now.

Writing nine novels is a feat in itself. I look forward to reading more in this series, but I was disappointed after reading this one. After I read the last chapter I was like "that's it?" Darn.