Mercy Thompson Series Overview

Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs

 

This Post Contains Spoilers For The Entirety Of The Mercy Thompson Series Up Through Soul Taken. You Have Been Warned.

I've started writing this thing just as I'm beginning to read Soul Taken, partially because I wanted to get it started and partially because that little muse in the back of my brain is prodding me with thoughts. So here we go.

Mercy Thompson is largely a series centered on community. It doesn't precisely start out that way, what with Mercy being a self-professed loner, but it definitely falls into that category was the story progresses. I find this sort of thing seems to happen when there is one protagonist and they find themselves becoming essentially the center of their supernatural community for one reason or another. Mercy started with the Columbia Basin Wolf Pack and jumped right into the entire Tri-Cities Area. At the same time, each piece of the community definitely has their own flavor and they don't actually mix very much, or as much as I might have made it seem in this paragraph. I was originally just pulled in my the werewolves and vampires, but the rich Fae mythology and a bit of the witch stuff was a nice addition that helps make Mercy's world feel lived in. Not gonna lie, the line-up of people who went to Italy to "save Mercy" from Bonarata in Silence Fallen made me tear up a little. This community is also still in its fledgling stages as of Soul Taken, with no one really trusting each other very far, but Mercy spends the entire book referring to the vampires as "our vampires" and Larry the Goblin King wants to be friends so... baby steps.

I find it really gratifying that Mercy and Adam have a mostly stable and fairly healthy relationship. That sort of thing is definitely not normal for these sorts of series. Usually, there's a lot of relationship drama between the main character and his/her beau to distract from the main story. It's actually quite nice to not have to worry about that happening through most of the series, Smoke Bitten notwithstanding. Adam's Ex, Christy, really makes me want to throw things so Mercy and I agree on that, at least.

I also quite like that Mercy is definitely more human than the people she runs around with and it's actually shown. No super-human healing for Mercy... except that one time when Coyote saved her life. But otherwise, Mercy actually spends a lot of time in hospitals, healing from various injuries that would definitely be sustained by a largely non-supernatural character. She also actually gets exhausted and actually shows signs of shock when that happens, so, yeah. Gimme some realism with my fantasy, please.

It also makes me immensely happy that Mercy is first and foremost a mechanic. She doesn't have any policing background and doesn't even get super involved with the policing aspect of the "Protectors of the Tri-Cities" thing she imposed on the pack. In fact, it's very rare that she's actually involved in the policing aspect at all. Yes, Mercy does do a lot of problem-solving, but that's usually while she's fixing a car. This all makes a nice change from, say, Anita Blake or Rachel Morgan or any of the other urban-fantasy protagonists I've read. That Mercy is a mechanic and almost stubbornly stays a mechanic throughout the series makes me very happy, even if she does spend a lot of time closing her shop due to supernatural reasons.

My favorite wolves are definitely Ben and Honey. Ben reminds me a lot of Spike from Buffy. Both problematic faves, I do realize. Honey, though, is definitely a lot less problematic. I felt very much for her loss, but feel that she's rallied well afterward. That she's ended up 4th in pack ranking the last time that was mentioned (Sherwood's recent discovery notwithstanding) makes me very happy. I definitely still love Warren and Kyle, but they've dropped behind Ben and Honey so... yeah. There's also not been a whole lot with Warren and Kyle after the first few books, which makes me a little sad, but... le sigh. Just gotta deal with it.

I guess now is as good a time as any to discuss my biggest pet-peeve in all of supernatural media: How Werewolves Work as Opposed to Actual Wolves. So, the way werewolves work was originally pulled from research on captive wolves and later David Mech's book in 1970. You have an Alpha wolf/mated pair who rule over the rest of the wolves based on their dominance and the pecking order goes by who's more dominant or less dominant. Patricia Briggs' werewolves definitely follow these guidelines as to how the pack works and even has submissive wolves playing quite a big role in keeping the dominant wolves from going nuts on each other at any given moment. This is all well and good for werewolves, but it's not actually how real wolf packs work and so it bothers me a lot. I mostly shove these thoughts into the back of my brain while I'm reading these days, but it's still a thing that bugs me. Of course, werewolves are also influenced by their human sides, Patricia Briggs' work actually mentions this and pretty much cites it as the reason her werewolves have females taking their rank from either their husbands or just being lowest because female. And look, it works well enough in fiction, so you can have certain werewolves get all tetchy about stuff, but... I hate it and want it to stop. Most likely won't anytime soon, so I just have to deal with it.

I feel like the Fae in the Mercy Series are a lot more "true to life" than other series make them out to be. It's neat how their various mythologies are woven in with more modern stuff. I particularly love Baba Yaga and was reasonably pleased with Rumpelstiltskin's portrayal. Mostly we get Zee being grumpy and Tad being around. Uncle Mike and Beauclaire are also notable... or would be in the absence, I guess. I like that they're so precise with their wording and definitely more dangerous than the humans want to believe. I'm not so sure about Underhill, though. Like, really not sure. I think the issue is just not being able to "get a read" on her. She's too tricksy and old and just... very Fae like, even to the Fae. I really don't like how she's got her claws in Aiden... but that's an ongoing issue that I don't think is going to be resolved anytime soon.

Patricia Briggs' vampires have interesting mechanics. I'm pleased that they take a while to make, essentially, otherwise I feel like they'd be overrunning the world by "breeding" like rabbits. It is also quite interesting that we end up dealing with pretty old vampires, for the most part. Bonarta, Marsilia, Stefan, and Wulfe are all centuries old. Probably the youngest "major" vampire we saw was Frost, who was only a few decades, if I'm remembering correctly. I also kind of like the "sheep" or "flock" aspect of their feeding pool. Makes a lot more sense if you want to stay in the shadows to have a dedicated pool of people to feed from rather than leaving dead bodies in your wake all the time. Wulfe jumped to the fore of the Mercy vampires with his stalking of Mercy and the whole thing in Soul Taken. He's... interesting definitely, but also very unique. He's the only tri-species vampire I've ever come across in my reading, so that's neat. Like Mercy, I'm really not sure how to feel about him.

I want to give a special shout-out to the Mercy cover artist: Dan dos Santos. I love his work and feel like it truly captures Mercy. Also, I never do cover artist shout-outs and I kind of stole the cover-pic collage from his website, so yeah. You can take a peek at his website: HERE.