Should charm the young.
Fifteenth in the Dragonriders of Pern series, with McCaffrey’s son Todd taking up the dragon reins as co-author and heir.
The McCaffreys must have an ever-reinvigorated field of adolescent and adult readers to draw on for their fanbase. The Skies of Pern (2001) added some new twists to the vast saga, the recovery of ancient technology to divert the Red Star, Pern’s sister planet, and wipe out the remaining Threadfall (although Thread has been wiped out before and yet fallen again in later novels as the Red Star returns). Aivas (artificial intelligence) no longer works, and the ultraconservative Abominators resist all social change. Thread does return here as the story looks far backward to an earlier bonding of dragonriders and the distant cousins of dragons, called watch-whers (the dragon’s kin). Thread is bare, silvery wisps that fall from the sky when the Red Star draws near; they suck every nutrient out of all organic matter, including flesh and soil, but genetically engineered and enlarged fire lizards chew phosgene and burn Thread before it lands. Pern, a strange mix of the scientific and medieval, has run out of coal, and watch-whers help sniff out tunnel-snakes and noxious and explosive gasses as miners dig for new seams. When a caravan comes to Camp Natalon, young Kindan has to wash Dask, the telepathic watch-wher, and learn a dragon song from the aged Master Harper, all for a big wedding. When he sings at the wedding, Dask sings along with him. Later, Dask dies while leading rescuers to a tunnel collapse where miners are trapped. Kindan finds himself helping the Master Harper as Miner Natalon promises a winter’s supply of coal to Aleesa the WherMaster if she’ll allow Kindan the chance of a watch-wher’s egg. He’s to get an egg from the queen’s clutch—if she’ll let him. Much hangs on the hatching of Kisk from that egg.
Should charm the young.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-46198-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
With its bug-eyed monsters, one might think Dune was written thirty years ago; it has a fantastically complex schemata and...
This future space fantasy might start an underground craze.
It feeds on the shades of Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Martian series), Aeschylus, Christ and J.R. Tolkien. The novel has a closed system of internal cross-references, and features a glossary, maps and appendices dealing with future religions and ecology. Dune itself is a desert planet where a certain spice liquor is mined in the sands; the spice is a supremely addictive narcotic and control of its distribution means control of the universe. This at a future time when the human race has reached a point of intellectual stagnation. What is needed is a Messiah. That's our hero, called variously Paul, then Muad'Dib (the One Who Points the Way), then Kwisatz Haderach (the space-time Messiah). Paul, who is a member of the House of Atreides (!), suddenly blooms in his middle teens with an ability to read the future and the reader too will be fascinated with the outcome of this projection.
With its bug-eyed monsters, one might think Dune was written thirty years ago; it has a fantastically complex schemata and it should interest advanced sci-fi devotees.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1965
ISBN: 0441013597
Page Count: 411
Publisher: Chilton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1965
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Imperfect, but well constructed and engrossing nonetheless.
Cerúlia recovers from her wounds and decides it’s finally time to take back her throne in Kozloff’s (The Queen of Raiders, 2020, etc.) penultimate Nine Realms novel.
Badly burned and laid up in a Healing Center, Cerúlia is losing faith in herself. She misses the various friends she’s made along her journey, misses her home, and resents her limitations as she heals from injuries sustained in the previous novel. In the past, her magical “Talent” for talking to animals has helped her make friends with local creatures, but she’s worried that something has happened to her ability and fears using it. As she slowly recuperates and learns from the fellow residents in the healing center, Cerúlia comes to understand that she must face her responsibility to her people and find a way to become the Queen of Weirandale. To that end, she returns home to her nation’s capital, Cascada, only to discover that her long-lost foster sister, Percia, is about to marry the kindly son of the maniacal and power-hungry Regent Matwyck, the very person keeping Cerúlia from her throne. Reunited with her beloved foster family, Cerúlia decides it is time to stop hiding under aliases and disguises. But with no army to support her, how is she supposed to save herself from Matwyck’s clutches? And now that she’s seen more of the world and understands the lives of regular people, does she even believe in the idea of monarchy at all? Kozloff finally brings the action back to Weirandale in a compelling setup to the last novel in her series. Like Book 2, this one struggles a bit with standing on its own, but Kozloff uses these pages to make Cerúlia a more complex and compelling character. Threads following other characters from other nations are easy to follow and add dimension to the world, but as of now they still feel a bit too detached from the main plotline.
Imperfect, but well constructed and engrossing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16866-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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