A satisfying culmination to the adventures of a Roman warrior in the New World.
In the final volume of his alternate-history trilogy supposing that the Roman Empire never collapsed, Smale (Eagle in Exile, 2016, etc.) chronicles a 13th-century world war as Roman and Mongol empires clash in Nova Hesperia—North America.
Roma and Cahokia, "center of the mound-builder culture," maintain an uneasy alliance at the great city north of the confluence of the Mizipi and Wemissori rivers. Then word comes that Chinggis Khan and his Mongol Hordes are pillaging west of the great mountains. Disgraced Gaius Publius Marcellinus, a Crowe-in-Gladiator protagonist, had his command wiped out during Roma’s initial foray into Hesperia. Now Imperator Hadrianus gives him the unenviable task of contacting the People of the Hand far to the southwest to negotiate an alliance to resist Mongol incursions. Gaius meets tragedy, his party decimated after stumbling upon a Mongol army. Gaius survives only to wreak a near-pyrrhic victory from a Mizipi naval battle. Hadrianus decides to set out to meet the Mongols on Hesperia’s vast grasslands. Thus, Gaius is once more into the breech. The characters may be static, but they’re well-defined, whether it’s the young Cahokian chief, Tahtay, ambivalent about the alliance; Hadrianus, sly, manipulative, and audacious; or Gaius, Wanageeska to his Sintikala Cahokian wife, whom he loves passionately. There’s minimal back story; elements like the Cahokian developing hang gliders as weapons of war employing Greek fire or Khan crossing the ocean and allying with warlike Tlingits aren’t fully elucidated. The pace, however, is breathless and the action relentless, and Smale’s description of battles, tactics, and weapons—who knew a Mongol war horse was trained to bite and kick a foe?—are informed down to the construction of Mongol bows or the purposes of a centurion’s pila and gladius.
A satisfying culmination to the adventures of a Roman warrior in the New World.Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7726-9
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
PERSPECTIVES
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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