An unexpectedly compelling lone wolf narrative in a Western-flavored fantasy world.
An ex-soldier battles small-town corruption and an ancient evil in Brantingham’s debut fantasy novel.
Once Capt. Sean Fitzpatrick was the loyal guard to Dwyer, King of Easthorn Castle. When Easthorn falls to the invading King Keodan, Sean expects to die defending Dwyer. Instead, Keodan himself spares him, though his wife and child are slaughtered in the rampage. Grieving and homeless, Sean stumbles into the small town of Skoagy, with only the legendary Vathiriel Blade at his side. Sean wants nothing more than to find peace, but fate has other plans. He quickly crosses paths with Phireol Cook, saloon owner and Skoagy’s self-appointed sheriff. Cook has made a profitable business of crookery and threats, and he doesn’t like the look of the mysterious stranger. His suspicions are confirmed when Sean decides to help a family struggling to make loan payments to Cook, interfering with his meticulous web of coercion. Soon Cook hatches a plan to be rid of Sean once and for all. But Sean has other ideas, including a quest to slay the sinister Watcher in the forest and retrieve its treasure for the good of the town. Brantingham’s prose moves quickly, generating constant tension, and multiple battle scenes, with their blood spatter and plunging knives, further raise the stakes. Much of the plot follows the a-stranger-rides-into-town narrative more closely associated with Clint Eastwood films than fantasy novels, right down to the saloon, the prostitutes, the corrupt sheriff, and the sniveling cowards who assist him. In some aspects, it’s unavoidably formulaic (one wishes for more complex representations of the female characters, whose roles are largely limited to wife, mother, bride, or whore), but the Western style also helps to ground Sean’s quest and adds welcome verve to the fantasy premise. Sean is the essence of a stoic hero whose suffering is neither touted nor glossed over. Ultimately, the unusual genre mashup and crisp prose make this novel a fun read.
An unexpectedly compelling lone wolf narrative in a Western-flavored fantasy world.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5233-4674-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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