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Portals, Passages & Pathways

BOOK 1: IN THE LAND OF MAGNANTHIA

Moderately entertaining, somewhat derivative YA fantasy.

In Maul’s debut novel, two small-town teenage protagonists travel from Earth to a magical fantasy world to settle its destiny—and theirs.

One of the teenagers is a “chosen one” of sorts, young Simon Whittaker, whose best friend and her family have been watching over him until he assumes his role as a guardian of the war-torn land of Magnanthia, which waits beyond a sorcerous portal. Chosen by the Ring of Affinity for its own mysterious reasons, Simon journeys through the portal to uphold the faith of those who still believe in the guardians. But he must survive many perils as well as hard training by strange new companions—a swordsman, a ranger, a wizard and a cleric. At the same time, teenager Jak Jakobsin is dragged through the portal by servants of the overlord of Bedlam, who plots to ruin Magnanthia with sinister magic and an army of the walking dead. Jak is seduced by the power of evil wizardry and soon becomes a formidable up-and-coming sorcerer. The wild card in all of this is King Elderten of Magnanthia, who blames the guardians for the death of his queen. He seeks to kill the guardians, endangering Simon and unwittingly playing into the hands of the powers of Bedlam. Competently written, the novel delivers believable characters and serviceable dialogue. The pacing is fine, although the transition between Earth and Magnanthia doesn’t happen until roughly halfway through the book, draining narrative force. Most of all, the worldbuilding is typical: The novel borrows, sometimes too heavily, from Dungeons & Dragons, C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series and Harry Potter.

Moderately entertaining, somewhat derivative YA fantasy.

Pub Date: April 24, 2014

ISBN: 978-1493703821

Page Count: 478

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2014

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IRON FLAME

From the Empyrean series , Vol. 2

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

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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

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