Murphy Battles With Faith At Thunderbird Falls

Thunderbird Falls by C.E. Murphy

Does faith and purity alone make one free from the necessity of judgment? In the battle of thinking and feeling, is there danger in doing too much of either?

Joanne Walker is a woman who thinks that she thinks too much. In the sport of mind games, she's an all-star athlete. The reader is inclined to forgive her. A mechanic cum beat cop who thrives on cynical rationalism, she made the discovery that she is a shaman whose psychic powers are needed to save the world over and over. That she resists this calling doesn't seem too outrageous.

What's a woman to do when all she has scorned-from Tarot cards to gods to witchcraft-turns out to be real? Perhaps we can even forgive her that she would begin to trust those who rely solely on their feelings and emotions more than she trusts herself and her rational approach to life.

Thunderbird Falls is the continuation of the story that began in Urban Shaman and continued in the novella, Banshee Cries, one of three published in Winter Moon. In this novel, Joanne Walker (whose birth name was Siobhan Walkingstick) discovers she's responsible for changing weather patterns in Seattle. A coven enlists her aid to fix things by helping a 3,000-year-old spirit, Virrisong, cross over into the modern-day world of Seattle.

Author C.E. Murphy brings back many of the continuing characters that made her first two offerings in this world so delightful. There is the superhero-gone-to-seed Captain Morrison; the cross-dressing Billy Holliday who is married to a stunningly beautiful wife and is father to a household of kids; Grizzled Gary, the true-believing cab driver whose age is exceeded only by his wisdom, and Thor, the blond mechanic who took Joanne's job.

Thunderbird Falls is published by Luna, a Harlequin imprint that publishes fantasy literature with strong central female characters. There's an interesting twist in this particular novels. Typically one of my biggest complaints with romance-genre books is that the protagonists go through the stages of "oh, I love you" and "now I hate you" ad nauseum at such a dizzying pace that I typically want to slap the characters. In this novel, Joanne doesn't do that with a lover, but with her powers. No matter how many times she says she is going to accept them and start learning about them, she keeps pushing them away.

However, it is Joanne's lack of belief that makes this book readable by cynics and rationalists. If she surrendered too easily to the bizarre turns that her life has taken, we might be somewhat reluctant to follow. Murphy takes advantage of this hesitation in this novel and forces both Joanne and her readers to determine where on the scale of acceptance and cynicism it is healthiest to fall.

Murphy really can tell a story that is fascinating, though there are a few hiccups along the way. A few of the spirit world scenes become tedious. Joanne's lack of sleep is described so well that it often leaves the reader fatigued out of empathy. Joanne also throws out a line at some point that witchcraft is good and sorcery is bad. For a woman who has eschewed all such things for most of her life, one wonders how she came to that conclusion and what the basis for it is.

For a character who is primarily non-religious and definitely not a monotheist (it is hard to be a monotheist when you've met other gods and those gods have tried to kill you), it almost seems hypocritical the number of times she uses the names of Jesus Christ and God as interjections.

Forgive the geek reference, but you also have to assume that Joanne has never watched the Star Wars movies, because she doesn't flinch when the coven talks about the need to resurrect Virrisong to "bring balance" to the world. Don't we all know by now that "bringing balance" means putting the bad guys on an equal footing with the good guys?

However, those are minor complaints compared to the delightful storytelling found in Thunderbird Falls. I've found that I'm interested in Joanne Walker and what is going to happen to her and her world next. I'm still wondering with whom she is going to end up having a romance. While traditional signs point to Captain Morrison, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it ended up developing with Gary instead. Murphy has left just enough open-ended that I'm going to keep reading the books to find out what happens.

I'm also fascinated by the themes that Murphy continues to explore, especially those related to faith, judgment, and acceptance.

--B. Redman