Complete with otherworldly surprises, this tale delivers an inventive adventure.
A debut fantasy novel traverses the modern day and a strange ancient time.
A graduate student named Nikki Ricks finds herself at a paleontological dig deep in the jungles of South America. When a blue metal sword that seemingly exhibits vast power is unearthed at the dig, Nikki and her colleagues become perplexed. While they never expected to stumble on a mysterious sword in the jungle, they certainly aren’t prepared for the events that follow its discovery. After Nikki’s world is upended, the story shifts to a young man named Rogaan. Rogaan lives in a bygone era where dangerous animals lurk, and it is only with immense bravery that men dare to stalk them. Rogaan and his friend Pax are excited to go on an organized hunt, although the activity is much more severe than a casual turkey shoot. Rogaan and Pax must obey militarylike commands and endure grueling conditions just to get to their prey, let alone kill anything. As the two return from their mission, they learn of great unrest in their homeland. Not only are people being arrested, but the authorities happen to be looking specifically for Rogaan as well. Should the two surrender or try to find out what is happening? Choosing the latter, they take the reader on a journey that echoes classic buddy escapades like The Lord of the Rings series, with dashes of fantastical beasts. Although details, such as preparations for Rogaan and Pax’s epic hunt, can be overly explained (“A sense of foreboding taunted Rogaan”), the book’s true excitement builds once they have returned from the wilderness. Packed with action and the lingering question of Nikki’s fate and how it relates to Rogaan, Vonsik’s series opener offers an engaging plot to keep the fantasy fan reading. Although Pax’s manner of speaking recalls an unpopular character from a galaxy far, far away (as when he questions Rogaan with “Ya be honestly wantin’ ta go there?” or expresses discontent: “This not be right!”), the heart of the story is the various secrets it has to reveal. Avoiding many clichés of the genre, the narrative provides a bevy of tantalizing threads to savor.
Complete with otherworldly surprises, this tale delivers an inventive adventure.Pub Date: March 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-578-13861-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celestial Fury Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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