A bloodbath that should impress readers of the grimmest fantasy tales.
This series opener sees a warrior determined to free an island from a Daemon’s grasp.
Dysart of clan Bloodhammer has lost his sloop and is now washed ashore on the island of Volgunther. He’s immediately set upon by savages, but thankfully a man named Talbot saves Dysart with his bow and arrows. At his nearby cabin, Talbot learns that his guest has no tongue. Then Dysart draws a rune in hog’s blood on his throat, which allows him to speak. He explains that his people, the Cayne, once inhabited the island. They also woke a Daemon called Salamandrus, making a pact with the entity for power that involved the ritual of Sang Daemanus. Later, they sealed the Daemon away, but “instead of ending their service to Salamandrus, they departed from this place, hoping to retain their power.” Dysart has come to end his people’s accord and make Volgunther a hospitable island once more. After obtaining an axe and other supplies from Talbot, he travels east toward a settlement. He saves a pyromancer named Randall from wolf men and drinks their blood to receive heightened senses and healing abilities. But Dysart concludes that his rune for speech will fade without the esper oil derived from a plant somewhere on the island. Randall joins him, and they head for Etmire Abbey, where they encounter the Order of the Cross. Dysart will need every ally he can find as he battles through monstrous hordes toward Salamandrus’ lair in Castle Golvundehr. Dennis (War and Glory, 2017, etc.) squeezes all the gore he can from his muscular imagination to enhance his novel, which recalls the viscera-strewn adventures of fantasy icons like Conan and Elric. Readers learn early on about Dysart’s magic: “Animal blood is effective, if weak. Human blood is potent, if unsavory...but Daemon’s blood makes us unstoppable.” This results in a marathon of grisly dispatches—encounters with frog men, murderous plants, zombies, and worse—that propel the hero but also fuel his addiction to power. While the plot is somewhat linear, the gruesome premise shines blackly throughout. Dysart not only needs blood, but he’s also traded his tongue, his testicles (“that we might not realize our own power as humans”), and his mind as an initiate of Sang Daemanus. Fighting at his side are characters like Pattius, a thief; Marcus, a knight; and Reman, a young orphan. The author often fleshes out these warriors just enough to draw from readers a meaningful wince as he sacrifices them to Dysart’s cause. A dreadful ambience hovers even in quieter moments, as in the line “Only darkened hills loomed in the distance. Everything else was flat grassland molded by gusts of wind.” The dialogue during combat scenes is appropriately maniacal (“Blast you, croakers! Fall to the wrath of Randall!”), yet Dysart is capable of speaking beautifully. In cautioning Talbot, whose family is dead, he says: “Hold their memory dearly, and do not rush to see them.” Though the violence grows monotonous, a finale bristling with invention redeems the work.
A bloodbath that should impress readers of the grimmest fantasy tales.Pub Date: May 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5123-6985-4
Page Count: 310
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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