Mo‘s review of Undone (Outcast Season, Book 1) by Rachel Caine
Urban fantasy released by ROC 3 Feb 09

Cassiel, a fallen Djinn, is now in a human body and working for the Wardens. She must partner with one because she cannot produce her own energy and needs to absorb it from a Warden. She is partnered with Manny Rocha, an Earth Warden, and they are attacked by unexplainable forces that are out to get them. Hurricanes, fires, electrical issues, and sandstorms are only some of what they face.

Cassiel ends up taking a road trip with Manny’s brother Luis, and investigating missing children and a creepy place called only “The Ranch”. I think the most disturbing thing there has to be the malicious child army of ‘rejects’. The Ranch is a cult-like compound that is preparing for something that will change the course of humanity. Undone offers no resolution to the storyline, but does reveal the cause of Cassiel’s banishment at the end.

I almost abandoned Undone. For the first twenty pages, Cassiel drove me batty. She was arrogant, rude, and ungrateful. She looked at humans as a commodity and an annoyance, and when she refused to obey an order from a superior, she was punished by being put into a human body. Cassiel did not stop complaining about it, and it was very hard to push past those pages. I had to remind myself that Cassiel was the equivalent of a fallen angel, and that her reactions were understandable, given that she had never truly interacted with or empathized with humanity in the past. It also helped that she started to understand humans and that she discovered hidden truths about herself as well. Over the course of the book, she redeemed herself in my eyes.

I had some difficulty reading the book because I had not read the Weather Warden series and was not familiar with some terminology that went unexplained in the book. I knew that Djinn were like genies, but they seemed to act more like angels to me, so that was confusing. The “aetheric” I believe was referring to Heaven, or some plane of existence not accessible by humans. For a while, I didn’t understand the different types of Wardens, where their powers came from, or what they did with them. None of that information was explained. There were some hints and vague references scattered throughout the book, but never any straightforward explanation.

Overall the book was good. The pace was fast, the action intense and creative, the world colorful and complex. There were some minor sticking points, but I did enjoy the book and am looking forward to the next novel in the series, Unknown.

Grade :B

Summary:
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“I was one of the Old Djinn, the First Djinn, who came before any human walked the earth. I was a spirit of fire and air, and Ashan cast me down to this heavy, crippling flesh…”
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Once she was a powerful Djinn. Then Cassiel defied her ruler, Ashan, who tore her very essence away and reshaped her in human flesh as punishment. Forced to live among mortals, Cassiel has found refuge among the Weather Wardens—whose power she must tap into regularly, or she will die.
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Cassiel earns her keep by assisting the Earth Warden Manny Rocha on his missions—which she finds much easier than coping with the emotions and frailties of her human conditions especially her growing affection for Manny’s brother, Luis. But when Cassiel encounters a malevolent force that threatens the Rocha family, she discovers that her perceived human weaknesses may be her greatest strengths….
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Read an excerpt.