A middling but occasionally intriguing dark fantasy.
Johnson, in her debut, offers the first installment of a new horror-fantasy series.
Shade Harrellite is half-human and half-Del’Praeli, a species of shape-shifting, nocturnal supernatural predators. As such, she can use powers linked to the Energy of Lifeblood and the Bria of the Darkness. Chafing under the pressures of living under the rules of both human and Del’Praeli societies, Shade rebels in small but harmless ways. But when her journey leads her through a mysterious magical protection shield to Raesul, a village inhabited by nonhumans, she begins to learn the truth about herself, the Del’Praeli and the Darkness to which they’re all connected. She also starts to learn the secret of the non-human race, the Sciell, whose members each hold two consciousnesses, and about her own role in the destiny of her world. The tale follows the familiar formula of the coming-of-age tale as it reveals its secrets, but it does so with a welcome sense of enthusiasm. Johnson’s style is unpolished but somewhat reminiscent of authors Tanith Lee and Anne Rice, although it occasionally drifts into the portentous (“She stood, shaking as though fighting merciless emotions”). The pacing is slow, mostly because this is the first book in a series, intended to set up the characters, conflict and world. As a result, there’s less action in this volume than dialogue, but this is not a fatal flaw. The worldbuilding is competent, if undistinguished, with touches of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series in its character and place names. It also draws on popular monster-fantasy tropes similar to those seen in the works of Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris and others. However, it includes more modern terminology and ideas than other books of its type, which makes its setting a bit more distinctive.
A middling but occasionally intriguing dark fantasy.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495201738
Page Count: 387
Publisher: Aubey LLC
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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