Grab your dagger and sword, for the battle continues—setting the stage for a powerful Volume 3.
In the second book of a planned trilogy in which the Roman Empire never collapsed, Gaius Marcellinus copes alone after his 33rd Legion was wiped out by Cahokian warriors.
That defeat stymied the 13th-century Roman emperor Hadrianus III, who had planned to colonize New Hesperia—North America. Gaius has shared Roman technology and tactics with his former adversaries, making him a court favorite of Mapiya, Great Sun Man, ruler of Cahokia’s Great City of the Mizipi. The Cahokians already possessed sophisticated weaponry—aircraft (think hang gliders) and something like napalm, presented in acceptably believable fashion. Fearing Rome’s further ambitions, Gaius pleads for a truce and alliance between Cahokia and its historic enemy, the Five Tribes of the Iroqua. Secretly, Gaius seeks out the Iroqua. When Cahokian warriors learn why, there’s a bloody coup. Mapiya is killed. Gaius’ enemy, Avenaka, becomes leader of the Cahokians. Gaius, his loyalists, and beautiful, brilliant Sintikala, Cahokian aviation chief, must flee. Smale’s (Clash of Eagles, 2015) novel has the pace and scope of a Michener or Uris epic. Gaius and Hadrianus become compelling heroic characters, their face-to-face meetings nerve-wracking. Other characters, excepting Sintikala and a few other Cahokians, are bit players drawing little emotional investment. Conversely, Smale’s action scenes slash across page after page, intense and bloody. Gaius and his crew steal a salvaged Viking longboat and traverse the Mizipi River, attempting to form tribal alliances. After discovering more Romans are landing, Gaius races north to the Wemessori River to find the People of the Grass. There, Tahtay, Mapiya’s son and rightful Cahokian leader, has returned to his mother’s people, the fierce Blackfoot. Tahtay’s evolving boy-to-man character helps Smale’s imaginative story blast past preconceptions as Gaius encourages the young chief to seek accommodation.
Grab your dagger and sword, for the battle continues—setting the stage for a powerful Volume 3.Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7724-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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