A tale that delivers an eclectic mix of courtly affairs.
A novel of royal intrigue centers on an eccentric queen in the time of young King Arthur.
Hall (A Man Called Plenty Horses, 2018) presents a visitor named Darien who arrives at King Arthur’s court. Darien has quite a story to tell and it begins with a king named Ballizar. Although readers are informed that Ballizar will eventually be remembered as “the Benevolent,” the beginning of his rule was anything but. Ballizar, in his days as the “Bachelor King,” had a penchant for trying and raping women in a bizarre, brutal ritual called First Night. In the second year of this practice, a beautiful woman named Syrenya came to the king’s court. Syrenya was able to please the monarch sexually (and any other takers, male or female) and soon thereafter was crowned queen. The royal, though fair in her dealings, refused to wear clothes and so became the Naked Queen of the book’s title. Naked though she was, Syrenya was hardly a flouncy pushover. She doled out advice and even requested an exorcism for her husband. She eventually adopted the then-10-year-old Darien and taught him about the world. But not all were happy with Syrenya’s rule. A rebellion brewed and the future of the kingdom was hardly certain. The author’s whole story sets an odd tone. At first, it seems Syrenya’s rule will be an erotic one, seeing as how she pleased the king when she “brought his tormented stiffness a little more into her mouth.” Yet such bawdy scenes are short-lived. Later portions include the details of an attack on a castle and even a song from a representative of the Vatican. Such diverse fare can be disorienting; readers can never be sure where it will all lead. And some dialogue becomes tedious, as when Syrenya gives a lengthy speech as to why she decides to be naked. This includes the odd information that in her place of origin “we have never taken up the habit of clothing ourselves.” Nevertheless, this serpentine tale of a mad king and a (literally) naked queen offers a host of tantalizing possibilities and should certainly hold readers’ interest. Even King Arthur, as he takes in Darien’s story, is nothing short of surprised.
A tale that delivers an eclectic mix of courtly affairs.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984545-50-3
Page Count: 215
Publisher: XlibrisUS
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2019
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
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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BOOK TO SCREEN
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