The ultimate crossroads for fans of werewolves and medieval sorcery.
In this debut fantasy, a shape-shifting sorcerer attempts to develop the skills necessary to thwart an ancient prophecy.
In the realm of Eversora, on the island of Lyrea, 15-year-old Darius is the son of a blacksmith. The boy’s best friends are books and knowledge, since the other teens shun him for not having a mother. His father, Keron, is the blacksmith for Baron Jesha, who oversees the mining town of Sinac. When Darius wonders what happened to his mother, Keron decides he’s old enough to know the truth. First Darius visits the library in Baron Jesha’s castle. On the way, he encounters a young girl with hypnotically green eyes. Further strangeness occurs inside the castle when Darius accidentally locates a chamber protected by magic. Inside is a book that won’t open. He brings the volume home, and his father explains that only nueri—shape-changing wolves—or people with majik in their blood, could have entered the chamber. Keron then tells him that the foul snake people, the Ananta, once enslaved a tribe of nueri called the Szahn. Darius’ mother, Virana, belonged to the Szahn. She left Sinac with the tribe, and the book is her journal. Later, Keron acquires a troublesome wolf pup that’s been caught nearby. The pup bonds with him and says that she is Dyla, Darius’ sister. That Keron possesses no knowledge of having had a second child with Virana is the grand intrigue in DaShaun’s grisly, toothsome novel. He places Darius at the convergence of several fantasy tropes, including Keron’s sorcerous bloodline and the prophecy stating that a child born of man (and another born of the soul) will destroy the Szahn. DaShaun sets a large stage meticulously, but once the action starts, the plot delivers thrills with monstrous gusto. The transformation sequences are visceral, as when one character “could feel ligaments and tendons snapping away from their connections, twisting inside his skin.” Further components like elemental lineages and a set of triple moons make for a magically layered narrative.
The ultimate crossroads for fans of werewolves and medieval sorcery.Pub Date: March 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5227-0987-9
Page Count: 338
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery.
Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition...and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood. This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences.
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31319-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.
In the first volume of a trilogy, a fresh cataclysm besets a physically unstable world whose ruling society oppresses its most magically powerful inhabitants.
The continent ironically known as the Stillness is riddled with fault lines and volcanoes and periodically suffers from Seasons, civilization-destroying tectonic catastrophes. It’s also occupied by a small population of orogenes, people with the ability to sense and manipulate thermal and kinetic energy. They can quiet earthquakes and quench volcanoes…but also touch them off. While they’re necessary, they’re also feared and frequently lynched. The “lucky” ones are recruited by the Fulcrum, where the brutal training hones their powers in the service of the Empire. The tragic trap of the orogene's life is told through three linked narratives (the link is obvious fairly quickly): Damaya, a fierce, ambitious girl new to the Fulcrum; Syenite, an angry young woman ordered to breed with her bitter and frighteningly powerful mentor and who stumbles across secrets her masters never intended her to know; and Essun, searching for the husband who murdered her young son and ran away with her daughter mere hours before a Season tore a fiery rift across the Stillness. Jemisin (The Shadowed Sun, 2012, etc.) is utterly unflinching; she tackles racial and social politics which have obvious echoes in our own world while chronicling the painfully intimate struggle between the desire to survive at all costs and the need to maintain one’s personal integrity. Beneath the story’s fantastic trappings are incredibly real people who undergo intense, sadly believable pain.
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-22929-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
