A sprawling story of fantastical creatures whose greatest strength lies in the comedic exchanges between its core cast...
A dwarf, an elf, and a young soldier arrive in the mystical town of Springdale looking for quests, which leads them to the dark center of an underground world in Mizgailo’s fantasy novel.
In the Lands of Amun, the aftermath of the Total War has “decimated most of the intelligent species or driven them to the brink of extinction.” After the war,humans, dwarves, elves, and orcs “now dominate this world” in which bandits, villains, and general unease prevail. Banded together by necessity, a trio comprises an “elf in pursuit of knowledge, a youngster in search of himself, and a burly dwarf embarked on his own mission to change the world.” In the story’s first half, the action is centered in Springdale’s sole tavern. As the trio become familiar with its patrons and proprietor—who’s also the leader of the village—they pick up mapmaking jobs and other odd quests in exchange for money, beer, and meals. Unbeknownst to the three, the titular unnamed wizard secretly oversees their quests and other local activities. Occupying an abandoned house, he’s prevented from materializing in the flesh, due in part to his ailing health: “My best tactic is to remain invisible, all while quietly pursuing the most unique artifact—the Aard of Being—deep within the dungeons.” With a Blood Moon on the horizon, a missing villager returns as a zombie that heralds necromancers and other dark forces converging. The trio discover a hidden dungeon entrance and embarks on their most dangerous quest yet, with the help of a fallen, a satyr, and a healer, to discover hidden artifacts and origins of evil.
Mizgailo’s presents readers with a lengthy read that’s divided between accounts of village life and tales of subterranean exploration. The scenes in Springdale’s tavern are full of banter and bawdy characters, lending the characters’ relationships a greater depth. Grampy, the oft-disgruntled dwarf, provides much of the humor in his desires for riches and alcohol: “Any free beer makes me happy.” The plucky boy soldier is engaging as he questions the elders in an attempt to learn more than the Warrior Guild permitted. In an addled dream sequence, his mind inspires some of the novel’s stronger prose: “His flame reflected from the moon, illuminating the tortured continent that was slowly devoured by darkness, calling for dawn.” The elf’s loss of faith is also a brief but compelling plot point. As the explorers descend into different dungeon levels, they encounter room after room of unholy creatures—each as deadly as the last. Readers familiar with role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer, will enjoy reading about grisly battles and learning the complex, unfolding rules of the Lands of Amun. For others, the scenes may become somewhat repetitive, particularly when a second troop is dispatched to investigate the same area. The wizard provides an effective anchor for exposition, but this long and sometimes-convoluted tale may not engage some casual readers.
A sprawling story of fantastical creatures whose greatest strength lies in the comedic exchanges between its core cast members.Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798287293208
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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