An engrossing, apocalyptic fantasy/SF tale that renders mental illness from an insider’s perspective.
An amnesiac man trapped in a brutal landscape of ruin, fire, monsters, and marauders undergoes numerous torments, learning that this nightmarish place is a literal reflection of his own mind.
Patrick’s SF/fantasy debut opens with a nameless, amnesiac protagonist trapped in a hellscape out of Hieronymus Bosch. Human civilization lies in wreckage amid rivers of fire and magma. Barbarians astride giant lizards spread pain and destruction, while all fear the regular, boiling rain that falls from the sky and the strangely sentient green mists that seem to hunt prey with their lightninglike energy bolts. The hero—ultimately called Joseph Morris—has technical expertise and strives to build a “machine” allowing him to escape, but the knowledge and clarity seem to elude him. He is told a way has been prepared by his parents, and the cryptic sage Dr. Alarius Vango is among his allies. Ending the first act is the revelation that Morris was a youth diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder who was institutionalized prior to a semistable adulthood working in IT. This awful setting is in his own mind, and much of the vivid dystopian/fantasy narrative is metaphorical of mental illness (a nepenthe-esque water, an analog to psychotropic drugs, gives Morris temporary relief from the agony but brings on lassitude and weight gain). There is also a strong infusion of ancient Gnostic philosophy, in that while entombed alive in his terrible, devastated inner world, Roman Catholic–born Morris is practically a god, but a fallen, feckless one, helpless and distant from the real God. A late revelation that Morris has entered his own mind in a radical gambit to help rescue his similarly stricken sister makes this engaging fabulist material weirdly akin to Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides. Fans drawn to Stephen King’s Dark Tower cycle will probably be more in tune with the prose than readers with Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden prominent on their shelves. Patrick has himself wrestled with mental illness and explains that he wrote this novel as his creative alternative to a straightforward sickness/recovery memoir.
An engrossing, apocalyptic fantasy/SF tale that renders mental illness from an insider’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-97346-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tears of Fire Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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