A direct sequel to Hambly's earlier Darwath trilogy (The Time of the Dark, 1984, paperback original), about a fantasy world beset by evil forces (but what fantasy world isn't?) and featuring two transplanted Californians, the mage Rudy Solis and the warrior Gil Patterson. Chronologically, five years have passed since the last novel—although if you haven't read the trilogy, much (Hambly's unnerving blend of technology and magic, for example, such as spellcasting recorded on videotape) will remain mysterious. The folk of the Keep of Dare in Renweth now face starvation as a ubiquitous horrid white growth, ``slunch,'' immune to magic and physical attack, permits nothing else to grow; also, the climate is cooling. Worse, anything that eats the slunch metamorphoses into a ghastly monster. Rudy and the old Archmage, Ingold Inglorion, find that the entire ecological onslaught is directed by three ice-mages and their queen, the Mother of Winter; their magic, on a different wavelength than Ingold's, can't be stopped. Ingold and Gil—she's been ensorcelled by the ice-mages to kill Ingold—travel south to battle the ice-mages while Rudy studies recordings of spells cast by the long-ago mage known as the Bald Lady. And the starving people of the Keep, now eating slunch, not only are transformed but become slaves of the ice-mages. Hambly's most disagreeable habit is interrupting her conversation with paragraphs of exposition or description, making it hard to follow who's saying what, and why. There are no plot surprises, yet the yarn's peppered with intriguing ideas—most given no more than a cursory exploration. Frustrating.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-345-39722-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
Stunning, again.
In the second of a trilogy (The Fifth Season, 2015) by the science-fiction columnist for the New York Times Book Review, the latest in a series of apocalypses marches on.
The powerful orogene Alabaster has used his powers to tear a blazing rift across the continent, and humanity faces extinction. Finding refuge in the underground comm of Castrima, the now-dying Alabaster struggles to impart vital information and skills to his former student and lover, Essun, which could potentially cease the flow of the tectonically devastating Seasons. All the while, Castrima faces tension from within—those who fear Essun’s rapidly growing magical powers—and without, as an invading army prepares to take the comm’s dwindling supplies for its own. Although Essun’s greatest desire is to recover Nassun, the daughter she loves, the girl always wanted to escape her mother, whom she perceives as cold and who imposed harsh training to discipline and hide her daughter’s orogeny. Nassun willingly left with her adored father even though he murdered her brother and violently loathes all orogenes. This uneasy father/daughter pair travels to a mysterious, distant community rumored to “cure” orogeny, where Nassun discovers a key figure from her mother’s past—but he’s no longer quite what he used to be. The worldbuilding deepens in this installment, with fresh revelations about the distant past and the true and alarming nature of the enigmatic stone eaters. But as in the previous volume, it’s the people who take front and center. Jemisin’s depictions of mob behavior are frighteningly realistic. And she offers a perceptive and painful portrayal of two different kinds of abusive relationships between parent and child. She also generates huge amounts of nuanced sympathy for some (but not all) of the characters driven to do truly dreadful things, often accidentally, to save themselves and the ones they love.
Stunning, again.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-22926-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
Roth makes a bold entrance to adult fantasy.
What happens to heroes after they save the world?
Sloane Andrews, Matthew Weekes, Esther Park, Albert Summers, and Ines Mejia fulfilled a prophecy by defeating an evil villain and saving the human race. But that was a decade ago. Now, they’re no longer teenagers, and enough time has passed that stand-up comedians are joking about why the murderous sorcerer who destroyed entire towns with magical “Drains” akin to natural disasters was called the “Dark One.” The magic he wielded with such deadly force is now the subject of dry academic writing. These days the five “chosen ones” are huge celebrities, but they still have to deal with realistic mundanities like making a living and caring for sick parents. Sloane in particular is struggling with PTSD and, after a few Freedom of Information Act requests, is reading about a more complicated side of the government official who helped train them as kids to fight the Dark One. Not long after a big celebration marking the 10-year anniversary of the Dark One’s death, Albert dies of an overdose. When Sloane, Matthew, and Esther gather together for his funeral, something unimaginable happens. As it turns out, the Dark One may not be gone after all, and everything they thought they knew about magic, the Dark One, and the prophecy that predicted his demise is wrong. Roth (The End and Other Beginnings: Stories From the Future, 2019, etc.) made her name by writing bestselling YA action/adventure novels like the Divergent series, so it makes sense that she can so expertly deconstruct those tropes for adult audiences. There’s a lot of magic and action to make for a propulsive plot, but much more impressive are the character studies as Roth takes recognizable and beloved teen-hero types and explores what might happen to them as adults.
Roth makes a bold entrance to adult fantasy.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-16408-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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