Complete Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne

May 22, 2020 Chris Well

Kevin Hearne’s urban fantasy series Iron Druid Chronicles—which includes novels, novellas, novellettes, and short stories—is set in a version of our world with witches, vampires, werewolves, demons, and elementals, plus an assortment of deities. The series is told in the first-person by three characters—Atticus O’Sullivan, Granuaile, and Owen Kennedy.

Kevin talked to Fantasy Literature about the origins of the first book, Hounded:

“I was writing the book I wanted to read, because nobody was really writing about the Irish pantheon. You would get vaguely Celtic stuff, but nothing really fleshing out characters beyond the Morrigan. So I said, ‘This is kind of being ignored, so maybe I can explore that a little bit more.’”

He told SFFWorld.com why he loves the urban fantasy genre:

“I like how all of the world’s mythology and folklore can be reexamined through modern lenses and perhaps updated for a drastically different culture. Also fascinating to me is the idea that some of the myths don’t adapt well at all—we’ve moved on to the point that they’re irrelevant. That gives me hope we can eventually move on past some of the old nonsense that currently grips people’s minds. But as far as Arizona goes, I like realistic settings in my urban fantasy and know Arizona well enough to do it justice since I live here. Phoenix is the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area so I figured it deserved some love, and besides, if you’re hiding out from the Fae, a desert on the other side of the world is a good place to lay low.”