This uneventful novel feels like a prelude to the rest of the saga, setting the stage for events that will come later.
The first book in a planned high fantasy series.
Bowen (The Sable Valley, 2013) introduces Coe Baba, a small medieval town with a long history of traditions. Basha, the innkeeper's adopted son is in love with Jawen, the daughter of the town's wealthy merchant. Their secret love affair is about to be made public with Coe Baba's annual courtship ritual. However, when Basha asks for Jawen's hand he makes a bold promise to her, offering her the cup of Tau, a possibly mythical object believed to be in a far distant land. The promise and the verdict of the local oracle set the stage for a quest to be undertaken by Basha and others. While the villagers do not entirely believe in the existence of magic and live simple lives, there are some who seem to touched by magic like Basha and his adoptive brother Oaka. There are also legends surrounding good and evil and an evil figure known as Doomba whose presence makes itself known in Coe Baba through those whose bodies he has invaded. The narrative tends to jump around in time so that certain events such as the courtship ritual can be examined from different perspectives. Immediately after seeing things through Basha's eyes, the narrative jumps back in time to give Jawen's take on the event. While the main portion of the narrative covers only a few days, there are several flashbacks to earlier events. Most of the second half of the book is a series of flashbacks providing detailed explanations of events in Basha's young life and the history of his relationship with Jawen. While the book is primarily told in the third person, there are later chapters written in the first person from the perspective of Nisa, a woman who has for many years watched over Basha without his knowledge. An attempt is made to describe a love triangle with Iibala, another girl interested in Basha, but this comes off feeling like it's been lifted from a modern teen drama. Readers are told, "Basha had been only thirteen or fourteen at the time he started dating Iibala, but he had been worried all of the time that he was dating her that she might leave him, jealous of the other young men who had once dated her." (59) Despite this drama the Basha-Jawen love story seems a bit tepid.
This uneventful novel feels like a prelude to the rest of the saga, setting the stage for events that will come later.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1492153757
Page Count: 384
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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