Shaman Rises

Author’s Note

Back in Y2K when I wrote Urban Shaman, I thought the Walker Papers would be a seven-book series. They grew to nine with the sale of the first “trilogy”—people kept referring to Urban Shaman, Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams that way—and very quickly I began to see the story structure as three trilogies, with Joanne going through certain steps of growing up in each of those trilogies.

I did not, frankly, ever expect it to span a total of eleven books, if you include Winter Moon’s “Banshee Cries” as a book (and I do!), or the independent collection of Walker Paper stories, No Dominion, as part of the series (and I certainly do!).

Eleven books is a lot, and while I know there are a fair number of dedicated readers who reread the whole series when a new book comes out, I thought I might offer up a quick, rather wildly inaccurate in detail but reasonably spot-on in spirit, recap for you. A jaunt—with all due apologies to a couple of boys—down the road so far:

Urban Shaman: Former police mechanic and now beat cop Joanne Walker is dragged into a world she doesn’t want to know exists when a coyote spirit gives her the choice between death or life as a shaman, after she’s skewered by Cernunnos, god of the Wild Hunt. She chooses life (look, nobody said it was a good choice, just a choice) and races to save a young woman named Suzanne Quinley from becoming a pawn in a game between Cernunnos and his son Herne.

Winter Moon—“Banshee Cries”: Joanne’s boss and love inter—no, no, no, he’s just the boss—pulls Jo on to a case of ritual murders, already trusting her magic more than she does. But Joanne’s not the only one on the case—her mother is back from the dead to protect Joanne from the banshee she hunts and from the banshee’s master, whose dark magic is more than Joanne is ready to handle.

Thunderbird Falls: Despite two mystical adventures, Joanne’s still got her head stuck firmly in the sand—if she ignores her shamanic powers, maybe they’ll go away. They don’t, of course, but there are ramifications to her ignorance: her beloved cab-driving friend Gary Muldoon is witched into having a heart attack; relative innocent Colin Johannsen and behind-the-scenes manipulator Faye Kirkland die trying to bring Joanne’s increasingly dangerous enemy, the Master, onto the earthly physical plane; and Seattle’s landscape is rearranged, creating a new waterfall on Lake Washington. It is not Joanne’s finest hour.

Coyote Dreams: No longer able to pretend her shamanic powers haven’t changed her life, Joanne finally steps up. But since her spirit guide, Coyote, hasn’t been responding since he saved her ass in Thunderbird, Jo’s totally on her own when a Navajo maker god begins putting Seattle’s police force to sleep. To her humiliation, her suspicions of Morrison’s new girlfriend, Barbara Bragg, are (not wrongly) attributed to jealousy. Even when Barbara and her twin brother, Mark, prove to be the god’s avatars, Joanne’s not so much vindicated as horrified, because god-induced visions make it clear that Coyote wasn’t a spirit guide at all, but another shaman, who died to save her. In the end, though, she’s accepted that shamanism is her future, and to reader outrage everywhere, she’s carefully turned down Morrison’s relationship proposal in favor of becoming a detective on the police force.

Walking Dead: The Black Cauldron of legend comes to Seattle, and with it come zombies. Suzanne Quinley makes a reappearance and saves Jo from zombies by calling on her grandfather, Cernunnos, god of the Wild Hunt. Unfortunately, it turns out even gods are susceptible to the Master’s cauldron, and Joanne in turn barely saves Cernunnos and his home world of Tir na nOg before she and her police partner, Billy Holliday, manage to destroy the cauldron—through the willing sacrifice of Billy’s long-dead sister’s soul, which he has carried with him most of his life.

Demon Hunts: A lost human spirit becomes a flesh-eating windigo, and, in seeking Joanne’s assistance, leaves a stretch of murders making a beeline toward her. Coyote finally returns, alive, in one piece, and runs straight into Joanne’s arms. Morrison has issues with that. Joanne has issues when Sara Buchanan, now the wife of Lucas Isaac, the boy who fathered the twins Joanne never, ever talks about, turns up as the federal investigator on the case as it crosses into national park territory. Gary totally saves the day, and Coyote, after asking Joanne to come with him, returns to Arizona alone.

Spirit Dances: Joanne’s partner, Billy Holliday, is nearly killed on a routine investigation. Shooting the perpetrator (not fatally) starts Jo on a slide to the realization she’s not going to be able to be both a cop and a shaman. She accidentally transforms Morrison into a wolf during a dance performance known for its healing powers. A werewolf bites Joanne, causing her to go larking off to Ireland for a cure immediately after quitting her job and declaring her love for Morrison. Readers everywhere scream bloody murder at me.

Raven Calls: A romp through time and the Irish Underworld (what Joanne knows as the Lower World, albeit with a different landscape) reveals Joanne’s dead mother as the new queen of the banshees and sees Joanne fight off the werewolf bite with Coyote’s psychic assistance. Joanne’s mother sacrifices everything to buy Jo just a little more time in the fight against the Master.

No Dominion: Gary’s history is not at all as he remembers it: he and his wife, Annie, have been fighting the Master longer than he ever knew, and Cernunnos guides him through an attempt to protect Annie from the Master and change their future. Also includes several short stories.

Mountain Echoes: Joanne’s dad is missing not just from North Carolina, but from the whole time line. As she tries to find him, the Master finally gets a physical foothold in the Middle World (our world), by way of going through Joanne’s twelve-year-old son, Aidan. Morrison arrives with the best entrance in the whole series and saves the day, and our star-crossed lovers finally get their moment together right before Gary calls Joanne to tell him that Annie Muldoon is alive....

Shaman Rises: Is in your hands. Commence reading, ideally with “Wayward Son” wailing on your mental soundtrack!