A promising first chapter in a new fantasy series that seamlessly weaves magic and politics.
In Fence’s fantasy debut, a librarian protects a jewel from factions who seek its power while journeying across a world fraught with magic and mystery.
Lenna suffers through a dull day working at the library, waiting for a shipment of books from the magic-wielding Brotherhood. Her childhood friend Gilbert appears with his traveling companion, a young mage named Luc, and they ask for her help in a mission that could unify the land’s four nations. Lenna agrees to shelter the pair, but on their way to her home, a member of the Brotherhood attacks them, and they discover that Lenna has magic powers of her own. When Lenna’s father finds out about the encounter, he orders Lenna to travel with Gilbert and Luc, since the Brotherhood is now hunting them. Armed with her late mother’s dagger, she sets off to learn more about herself and her previously unknown abilities. Tragedy strikes when a mage attacks them, and Lenna is entrusted with a gemstone of mysterious power. Lenna’s travels take her to her mother’s homeland, the land of Freewomen, and finally to the city of Tranum near the border of the militaristic Krevlum Empire, where the truth of the gem’s power is finally revealed. This first installment of Lenna’s story doesn’t answer all questions; indeed, at the conclusion, her self-discovery is only just beginning. Fence writes in a tone that’s engaging and confident, and he crafts an intriguing world of shifting politics and magical elements. For fantasy fans, he delivers a wholly realized explanation for his world’s magic system. The characters who aid Lenna each have compelling back stories and effectively draw out Lenna’s strength and personality; at the story’s beginning, she was content to remain reclusive and ignorant of the struggles around her. At the book’s conclusion, Fence promises to expand his world’s scope and up the stakes for Lenna and her friends.
A promising first chapter in a new fantasy series that seamlessly weaves magic and politics.Pub Date: May 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989366304
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Moon Rabbit Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2013
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
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
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