The Glorious Return of Stacia Kane’s Downside Saga

It’s been a phenomenally good summer for paranormal fantasy fans. Several major series have blockbuster installments hitting the shelves, including Kat Richardson’s Greywalker, Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim, and Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin.
But perhaps the summer’s biggest paranormal fantasy release, at least for me, was totally unexpected. It was the glorious resurrection of one of my all-time favorites series, Stacia Kane’s Downside saga. Trust me on this: if you’re a fan of groundbreaking, socially relevant paranormal fantasy, you will be hooked.
After the release of Chasing Magic last summer, I heard disturbing rumors that it would be the last Downside book coming from Del Rey—that for whatever reasons, they were pulling the plug on Chess, Terrible, and all of the other inhabitants of Downside. That news stunned me: with the recent conclusion of some landmark sagas (the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, Nicole Peeler’s Jane True saga, the Sabina Kane sequence from Jaye Wells, etc.) Kane’s Downside saga was poised to become one of the elite—if not the very best—paranormal fantasy series on the shelves.
Let’s not understate the potential of this series. Brilliantly imagined and masterfully written, this was one of the few paranormal fantasy series that could’ve—and should’ve—been embraced by mainstream readers. Anyone who has read these edgy novels will back me up here: I could easily imagine future Downside novels being released in hardcover, Chess and Terrible’s story being made into a television series (comparable to True Blood, only exponentially better), critics and scholars examining the social relevance of the themes explored within, etc.
Yes, it was that good!
When I found out that Kane was digitally self-publishing a new Downside story (a short novel entitled Wrong Ways Down) this summer, I was ecstatic. Written from the point of view of Terrible, this was a gem of a story that revolved a string of vicious murders involving Bump’s street dealers and brutal attacks on his prostitutes. Terrible is tasked with not only finding out who is behind the assaults but also killing all of those involved. What he uncovers is a grand-scale conspiracy involving the illegal use and exploitation  of sex magic…
But all that takes a backseat to the incredibly complicated relationship between Chess and Terrible. Passionate, painful, and incredibly realistic, this is a love story that you will not soon forget.
The heroine of Kane’s series is a drug-addicted, tattooed witch named Cesaria “Chess” Putnam, a Debunker for the Church of Real Truth. And although this series is categorized as paranormal fantasy, it could just as easily be described as alternate history—during a seven-day span in 1997, humankind was irrevocably changed when ghosts rose from their graves and killed millions of innocents. Only one small group, called the Church of Real Truth, devoted to the theory and study of magic, had the knowledge to control and defeat the ghosts. Now, several decades in the future, the Church essentially runs the world. There are no governments and no religions: “Who wasted their lives believing in a god when the Church had proof of the afterlife on its side? When the Church knew how to harness magic and energy?” The Church has even gone as far as to vow to reimburse citizens being haunted by the wicked dead. Debunkers are brought in to either banish the offending spirits or expose those fraudulent citizens trying to cheat the church out of money.
World-building usually isn’t a major strength in paranormal fantasy: most sagas create a perfunctory realm and then focus on the storyline. In the Downside saga, however, the world-building is truly exceptional. The novel is set in and around Triumph City, the American headquarters of the Church, and Kane does an exceptional job not only laying down a richly detailed and realistic backstory that goes all the way back to WWI but also creating a vibrant and authentic near-future. She has even created a fascinating vernacular to go along with a meticulously described “After Truth” culture.
But as remarkable as the world building is, it’s the unconventional—and unforgettable—characters that fuel this storyline: two in particular. Chess Putnam is a junkie whose habit has gotten her into trouble with her dealer. In debt for thousands of dollars, Chess is forced to agree to help the dealer/pimp (named Bump) with jobs that may involve illegal magic. Terrible is a muscular giant of an enforcer who works for Bump. He’s covered with tattoos and ritualistic scars and doesn’t talk much but when he is tasked to keep an eye on Chess, she uncovers another side to the seemingly cold-blooded killer…
The bottom line is this: Stacia Kane’s Downside saga is one of the very best paranormal fantasy sagas you will ever read—and hopefully if Wrong Ways Down sells well, another publisher will realize what a gem of a series this is and we’ll begin seeing more of Chess and Terrible in the near future!