Decidedly a middle volume, serving mainly to put the characters in place to enact the finale, whatever it might be.
A lot of people move from various points A to points B, several dying gruesomely in the process, in the action-packed middle volume of the Crimson Empire trilogy.
It is only because the Crimson Empire's army was betrayed from within that Gen. (formerly Princess) Ji-hyeon's considerably smaller Cobalt Company still survives. But now, fresh Crimson forces approach, and Ji-hyeon’s only hope is to negotiate an alliance to fight their true mutual enemy, the Burnished Chain. Former rebel and Crimson Queen Zosia is challenging Ji-hyeon’s leadership. The mercenary Maroto has been kidnapped to the newly raised island of Jex Toth, where he confronts hideous monsters and the crew of a wrecked pirate ship. Meanwhile, Maroto’s friends and his angry nephew, Sullen, go in search of him, pursued by Sullen’s mother, Best, who’s convinced that she must kill Sullen and Maroto to restore her homeland’s disturbed weather. In the city of Diadem, the Black Pope of the Burnished Chain has usurped the Crimson Empire’s Queen Indsorith’s throne, condemned the ex-ruler to imprisonment and torture, and rallied a fleet to establish a new divine rule upon the continent of the Star. And among them all darts the treacherous sorcerer Hoartrap the Touch, lying and stirring up trouble and catastrophic magic, pursuing his own mysterious, but obviously deadly, agenda. Clearly, many storylines are launched here, but they don’t seem to be doing much to propel the larger story forward, and the splintered plots make it somewhat difficult to keep track of everyone and everything that’s happened. Every small part is exciting and involving in the moment, but the end of the first book (A Crown for Cold Silver, 2015) suggested we might be experiencing more apocalypse at this point.
Decidedly a middle volume, serving mainly to put the characters in place to enact the finale, whatever it might be.Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-34070-0
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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
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