Despite a nimble plot and layered cast, the novel’s anachronisms and other inconsistencies undermine the storytelling.
A young man goes from poverty to near godhood through a series of magical quests in Franklin’s fantasy novel.
The story begins with the High Creator of Worlds, the deity Terragaia, sending a herald called the Watcher to find a new champion for humanity. The Watcher finds one in a poverty-stricken child named Akio. Until Akio was 10, he seemed like any typical child, until he manifested the ability to transfer “memories, knowledge, and wisdom” from others with just a touch. Thus begins a confusing period for Akio. He begins to learn and develop powers that start impressively and develop from there; for his first feat, he restores his mother to health, which appears to the villagers to be a resurrection. Before long, he’s developed into a Christ-like figure. With some prompting from the Watcher, Akio (newly renamed Zen) sets forth on a mission to collect magical items and companions and prepare for something ominously called “the final test.” Along the way, he collects companions, including a 300-year-old resurrected ghost, a lycanthrope, and a rogue with useful magic of his own. Although Franklin’s style veers wildly between parable and high fantasy, the plot advances smoothly, and Zen’s companions interact in fun, believable ways. Distractions abound, however. Despite the setting, characters speak in contemporary rhythms and slang (one villain reacts to lightning from Zen with “Damn, that was cool!”), which pulls the audience out of the story. Also, after creating several place names and geographies for Terragaia, Franklin runs out of steam and starts referring to real-world groups (such as Persians and Vikings), undercutting the worldbuilding, and by the novel’s abrupt end, readers may be confused about the overall story arc.
Despite a nimble plot and layered cast, the novel’s anachronisms and other inconsistencies undermine the storytelling.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781962568166
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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