A slam-bang conclusion to an outstanding trilogy.
Final part of the Powder Mage trilogy (The Crimson Campaign, 2014, etc.) about—well, mix the American Revolution with the Civil War, stir in gods, magic, power politics and what-all, and you’ll get the flavor.
Adro is being invaded by overwhelming forces—armies, gods, dark magic—from Kez. Again, the narrative focuses on three key figures. Field Marshal Tamas, a powder mage, one who eats or snorts gunpowder in order to gain magic powers, having been trapped behind enemy lines and facing annihilation, returns to the capital, Adopest, only to find it occupied by yet another invading army. His new allies, the Deliv, won’t arrive for weeks, and in the meantime, his beleaguered, fractious army faces not only the innumerable Kez armies, but internal dissent and outright treachery. Among other problems, the traitors are pursuing Tamas’ son, Taniel Two-shot, a powder mage and master marksman, who finds his own powers growing even without the boost offered by gunpowder, and Taniel’s companion, the mute, barbarian female witch Ka-poel, who, by means of her incomprehensible magic, has confined the terrifying god Kresimir. And Tamas charges retired police inspector Adamat, who’s wrestling with his own personal tragedy, with investigating the situation in Adopest. It’s complicated by the fact that, at the beginning, none of the three knows whether any of the others are still alive. So, fully realized characters contend with a stunning tangle of plots, counterplots, perfidies and conundrums against a highly textured backdrop. The action sequences that intersperse all this are as ferocious as ever, and it’s so inventive that it sometimes seems as though McClellan’s doing it just because he can.
A slam-bang conclusion to an outstanding trilogy.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-21912-9
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
First of a new fantasy series entitled The Liveship Traders, set on the same world as Hobb's stunning trilogy (concluded with Assassin's Quest, 1997) but otherwise unconnected. The trading ship Vivacia, owned and captained by Ephron Vestrit out of Bingtown, is constructed of wizardwood: Once three generations of Vestrits have died aboard, the wizardwood will ``quicken,'' become sentient and self-aware, embodied in its moving, talking figurehead. Two previous Vestrits have passed on; now Ephron lies dying, having turned over the captaincy to his arrogant and inexperience son-in-law Kyle Haven and not to his natural successor, sea-wise daughter Althea. Kyle in turn sends for his son Wintrow, whom he gave to be a priest of Sa and who wants only to remain at his monastery. Ephron dies, Vivacia quickens, and she befriends Wintrow. Kyle banishes Althea, sets about brutally training the reluctant Wintrow, and arranges to carry slaves. Meanwhile, the pirate captain Kennit nurses ambitions of capturing a liveship; some intelligent sea serpents have their own agenda; Ephron's widow Ronica must repay a crippling debt to the Rain Wild magicians, endangering her other daughter, the headstrong Malta; and Althea schemes to recover her ship. Plenty of promising ideas and material, but heavily padded and with utterly inconclusive plotlines: Hobb has succumbed to Doorstopper Syndrome, an apparently incurable malady characterized by bloat, irresolution, logorrhea, and brake failure.
Pub Date: March 9, 1998
ISBN: 0-553-10324-5
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
A striking literary fantasy informed by Arden's deep knowledge of and affection for this time and place.
A satisfying conclusion to a trilogy set in medieval times in the area on the verge of becoming Russia.
In a luxuriously detailed yet briskly suspenseful follow-up to The Bear and the Nightingale (2017) and The Girl in the Tower (2018), Arden's historically based fantasy follows heroic Vasya—a young woman with a strong connection to the spirits of the place where she lives—as she attempts to save her family and her country from evil forces. Because the novel starts with a bang where the preceding volume left off, with Moscow nearly burned to a crisp by a Firebird imperfectly controlled by Vasya, readers are advised to backtrack to the two earlier books rather than attempt to sort out all the characters and backstory on the fly. Among the humans are Vasya's sister, Olga, compromised by her desire for wealth and position; her brother, Sasha, a monk with a taste for the military life; Grand Prince Dmitrii; and corrupt priest Konstantin. Among the inhuman are the warring brothers Morozko, the winter-king with whom Vasya conducts a conflicted romance, and Medved, a demon addicted to chaos. Arden keeps the narrative fresh by sending Vasya questing into fantastic realms, each with its own demanding set of rules and its own alluring or forbidding geography, and by introducing new “chyerti,” demons or spirits, including an officious little mushroom spirit who indiscriminately plies Vasya with fungi, some edible and some distinctly not. Fans of Russian mythology will be pleased to find that Baba Yaga puts in a cameo appearance to straighten out some of the complicated genealogy. The trilogy leads up to the Battle of Kulikovo, which many consider the beginning of a united Russia. Arden neatly establishes parallels between Vasya's internal struggles, between attachment and freedom or the human world and the spiritual one, for example, and those taking place in the world around her.
A striking literary fantasy informed by Arden's deep knowledge of and affection for this time and place.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-88599-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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