Superior blend of gutsy action and dreamy magic in a well-wrought, darkly sinister medieval setting.
Chamberlin’s provocative, 15th-century fantasy series continues, with just enough sex, sorcery, and brutally realistic swordplay for the young Jehannette d’ Arc to emerge as the powerful culmination of all three. Gilles de Rais, the historical Bluebeard, has come into his own as a terrific fighter, though he is continually frustrated by the treacherous betrayals and shifting alliances that turn his hard-won victories for France into embarrassing routs. After ransoming his corrupt cousin from a Loire Valley fortress, he capriciously saves the life of a young boy. That boy dies, but, in liberating his spirit, the crippled sorcerer priest Père Yann, who was raised with de Rais in Chamberlin’s The Merlin of St. Gille’s Well (1999), learns the identity of the young girl La Pucelle, the fabled figure who will unite France and get rid of the English usurpers (known throughout as the “goddams”). Of course, young Jehannette d’ Arc is confused to hear the boy’s spirit whisper to her of destiny. One of three daughters born to the second wife of a peasant, she hates weaving, and would rather ride bareback and spin staff as a weapon, all to the consternation of her mother. Fortunately, the kindly Père Michel, a member of Père Yann’s magic sect of Good Neighbors, assures Jehannette that she will one day discover herself to be the right person in the right place at the right time. At the siege of a Bretagne castle, teams up with Hamish Power, a Scottish mage, just in time to give the skeptical de Rais a talisman that miraculously saves him when a move to storm the battlements seems to go awry. In jumping from Yann to de Rais to young Jehannette, Chamberlin shows how the arts of enchantment and the arts of war can be combined to create an irresistible, bisexual energy in her young heroine. At the close, Jehannette, having discovered that she is France’s savior, gathers an army around her to raise the siege of Orleans.
Superior blend of gutsy action and dreamy magic in a well-wrought, darkly sinister medieval setting.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-87284-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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