A creative but overstuffed conclusion to the series.
The Highgladeseries concludes in this third and final tale of factions battling across a vast fantasy land.
As Jennings’ newest installment opens, the fate of the Athrani people hangs in the balance of a dying warrior, the noble hero Miera. Having sealed off the Otherworld—or so she hopes and believes—she breathes her last, and we are dropped into the ruinous landscapes of the world she left behind. In the wasteland of Khulakorum, Seralith Edos—or “Sera,” as readers come to know her—is mourning the death of her father figure, Gen. Aldis Tennech. Our first encounter with her is more somber than when we meet Alysana, who quickly wins readers over with a bit of cloak-and-dagger action (literally) to fell a guard and release prisoners we can only assume are wrongly jailed. The very next chapter, we meet Duna (each chapter features a different character’s perspective), who can’t help but be memorable, given that she is recently ascendant to throne of Haidan Shar. Next comes Thornton and his Hammer (hmm…) of Worldforge, followed by Kethras and then Asha, each of them a sort of demi-god whose help—or interference—plays out with drastic consequences throughout the battles that pepper this series. Jennings’ prose is typical warrior-fantasy fare, “She had dealt with power-hungry madmen before, but admittedly, this was her first time dealing with a power-hungry madman who also happened to be a god.” The well-imagined plot unfolds with nonstop action: Families are torn asunder, characters once thought dead are reincarnated in shady deals, and the bonds of loyalty and notions of honor and nobility will be tested in battle. But this third installment simply has too many perspectives for readers to truly connect with any of them. Though much thought has been put into this storyline and the humans and gods who live it, the end result feels unfocused.
A creative but overstuffed conclusion to the series.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781954676756
Page Count: 590
Publisher: Indigo River Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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