An entertaining coming-of-age story with an Inuit flavor.
In this middle-grade novel, an Arctic boy goes on a quest to find his parents and fight an evil shaman.
Ever since he was discovered as a baby at the Whalebone Gate, a boy named Aluliaq, who goes by “Luli,” has been raised by his adoptive father, Oolik. Now, a dying Oolik gives Luli tools and a kayak, instructing him to travel and find answers about his origins. During his quest, Luli feels lost and alone and calls out for his adoptive dad, who appears to him as a fellow teenager. This version of Oolik can now reveal that Luli’s father, Aglavit, was a powerful shaman. He and the sea goddess, Sedna, fell in love, but a jealous and wicked shaman named Vang defeated Aglavit in a duel. When Sedna bore Aglavit’s son, she left him at the Gate to protect him from Vang, and this is where Oolik found him. Oolik teaches Luli how to find his spirit animal (a gyrfalcon) and instructs him to travel south to his mother’s Ice Kingdom, where he can “find protection, learn how to defeat Vang, and free your father.” Along the way, he’ll have help from his spirit animal and from Siku, a seal who knows the way; he gains another ally in Arud, a dwarf who operates and lives inside of a large, mechanical polar bear. Luli faces many trials as he joins in the battle to vanquish Vang, discovering himself in the process. The Arctic setting for this hero’s quest story is unusual, making it stand out from many other adventure tales. Santa Teresa (Lake of Clustered Stars, 2016) draws on authentic Inuit vocabulary and mythological elements, such as the deity Sedna. But the story also offers fanciful additions, such as the mechanical bear, which propels itself along magnetic stones by using magnets in its feet. Some may find this mixture to be culturally appropriative. However, the briskly paced adventure and crisp writing is undeniably appealing, as in an evocative description of Sedna’s guards, who have “a long-legged crab wrapped around their mouths and face, revealing only their eyes and the bridge of their noses.”
An entertaining coming-of-age story with an Inuit flavor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 69
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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