Kitty's Greatest Hits by Carrie Vaughn

"Why am I smiling? Because we totally save those people. We're werewolf superheroes! We're Batman and Robin! That's so awesome!                                    - Kitty in "Il Est Ne"

In general I tend to like Carrie Vaughn's work but I think this is some of the best writting she's done.  It is very tight. Kitty's Greatest Hits (Kitty Norville) shares some of the early highlights of Kitty, Ben and Rick's life.  And Cormac - I don't know about you but I always wondered how Cormac went from being a 'normal' person to a supernatural hitman.   "Looking After Family," "God's Creatures" and even "Long Time Waiting" explained so much!

If you have been reading Carrie's work then you know that she likes to put mix in some reality with that urban fantasy, which means Cormac ended up in prison when he got caught using violence as a solution. (The first time Cormac met Kitty he told her "I know what you are, and I'm coming to kill you" while she's on air.  Great introduction, right?)  It also means that when he gets out that he has to deal with the world changing while he was inside.  Much more realistic then just having a bounty hunter that never seems to deal with any of the consequences of his actions.

While I enjoyed all of the stories one of my favorites is "The Book of Daniel."  Leave it to an urban fantasy writer to take a Bible story and turn it into a shape-shifter story.  I hate to give away the plot but petty much everyone knows the basics from the Bible - Daniel is thrown into a den of lions and lives to tell about it.  In this edition, Daniel doesn't understand why God has inflicted him with this disease that causes him to lose control during the full-moon.  The story ends with King Darius saying "Your God is Powerful." and Daniel saying:

"And wise," Daniel said, thinking of all the full moon nights he had asked why.  Of course, God had known why.  "God is most wise."

Carrie always seems to include her play list with her books.  These are songs that she feels capture the feeling or tone of a story.  As you can expect many of them are rocking!  My favorite from this batch is actual one based on the origins of Rick, because really, you can't expect a 500-year old vampire to start out with rock n' roll.  I hope you enjoy it.