Gratz has plenty of fun with his alternate history, but returning readers will notice that the dark is definitely rising.
The company of heroes destined to battle the immortal Mangleborn continues to assemble in a middle volume that blurs the line between the good guys and the bad further.
The theft of the titular lantern, which transforms people who see its light into monsters of diverse icky sorts, sends superstrong Archie in pursuit aboard a huge steam-powered robot captained by George Custer. Meanwhile, the vengeful search for those who massacred her home village leads young Seminole warrior Hachi to Marie Laveau’s New Orleans for battles with zombis, loas, and a gigantic Mangleborn serpent. Gratz sets his colorful yarn in an alternate “North Americas” made up of several countries (both colonial and indigenous) and populates the teeming supporting cast with both historical personages, like a windup Jesse James, and an array of tentacled horrors. He pitches his gathering band of Leaguers—grown by the end to five of the appointed seven—into a nonstop round of chases, flights, ambushes, narrow squeaks, and heroic feats. Struggling with his own dark origins as well as a tendency to bouts of irrational, wildly destructive rage worthy of the Incredible Hulk, Archie leads a vividly drawn and diverse ensemble. Helquist’s portraits of intrepid or menacing figures at the chapter heads signal the story’s shifts in focus.
Gratz has plenty of fun with his alternate history, but returning readers will notice that the dark is definitely rising. (map) (Fantasy/steampunk. 11-13)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3823-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Starscape/Tom Doherty
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last.
The rebellion against an evil archmage and his bowler-topped minions wends its way to a climax.
Dispatching five baddies on the first two pages alone, wand-waving villain-exterminator Vega Jane gathers a motley army of fellow magicals, ghosts, and muggles—sorry, “Wugmorts”—for a final assault on Necro and his natty Maladons. As Necro repeatedly proves to be both smarter and more powerful than Vega Jane, things generally go badly for the rebels, who end up losing their hidden refuge, many of their best fighters, and even the final battle. Baldacci is plainly up on his ancient Greek theatrical conventions, however; just as all hope is lost, a divinity literally descends from the ceiling to referee a winner-take-all duel, and thanks to an earlier ritual that (she and readers learn) gives her a do-over if she’s killed (a second deus ex machina!), Vega Jane comes away with a win…not to mention an engagement ring to go with the magic one that makes her invisible and a new dog, just like the one that died heroically. Measuring up to the plot’s low bar, the narrative too reads like low-grade fanfic, being laden with references to past events, characters who only supposedly died, and such lines as “a spurt of blood shot out from my forehead,” “they started falling at a rapid number,” and “[h]is statement struck me on a number of levels.”
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last. (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-26393-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
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