A deeply satisfying but bleak, dark work; its only illumination are flashes of high tragedy and perhaps the glimmers of a...
Humanity teeters toward doom in the concluding Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne (The Providence of Fire, 2015, etc.).
The invading Urghul army nears the heart of the crumbling Annurian empire, led by Long Fist, the human host of Meshkent, the god of pain. The Annurian general, Ran il Tornja, appears to be defending the empire, but his main goal is to kill both Long Fist and the courtesan Triste, the human host of Ciena, goddess of pleasure. Doing so will exterminate most of humanity while potentially converting the remainder to il Tornja’s own kind, the long-lived, emotionless Csestriim. Kaden, the abdicated emperor, abandons his ineffectual attempts at politics and devotes himself to protecting Meshkent and Ciena’s hosts. His sister, Adare, the self-declared new emperor, rallies Annur’s defenses and tries to defuse the plots of il Tornja, her baby’s father. Her brother Valyn, betrayed by Adare and blinded by il Tornja, searches both for a purpose and the death of Balendin, Long Fist’s deputy, a leach whose magical power feeds on pain and terror. Many classic epic fantasies have concluded with the defeat of the Big Bad, followed by the wiping away of pain and terror and the start of a glorious, happy future for the hero. This novel lays out a much more plausible truth: it’s difficult forging a future on a nation ruined by war and civil unrest; the past’s consequences persist. No one is wholly good or wholly bad, and sometimes, even when protagonists have reached the very limits of their strength to earn their happy endings, there is no happy ending available, no matter how deserving they are of such a thing.
A deeply satisfying but bleak, dark work; its only illumination are flashes of high tragedy and perhaps the glimmers of a realistic but not far-ranging hope.Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3642-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Poignant and heartbreaking, eloquent and frightening, impeccably rendered, it’s a fable that reminds us how our lives are...
From one of the great masters of modern speculative fiction: Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005).
An unnamed protagonist and narrator returns to his Sussex roots to attend a funeral. Although his boyhood dwelling no longer stands, at the end of the road lies the Hempstock farm, to which he’s drawn without knowing why. Memories begin to flow. The Hempstocks were an odd family, with 11-year-old Lettie’s claim that their duck pond was an ocean, her mother’s miraculous cooking and her grandmother’s reminiscences of the Big Bang; all three seemed much older than their apparent ages. Forty years ago, the family lodger, a South African opal miner, gambled his fortune away, then committed suicide in the Hempstock farmyard. Something dark, deadly and far distant heard his dying lament and swooped closer. As the past becomes the present, Lettie takes the boy’s hand and confidently sets off through unearthly landscapes to deal with the menace; but he’s only 7 years old, and he makes a mistake. Instead of banishing the predator, he brings it back into the familiar world, where it reappears as his family’s new housekeeper, the demonic Ursula Monkton. Terrified, he tries to flee back to the Hempstocks, but Ursula easily keeps him confined as she cruelly manipulates and torments his parents and sister. Despite his determination and well-developed sense of right and wrong, he’s also a scared little boy drawn into adventures beyond his understanding, forced into terrible mistakes through innocence. Yet, guided by a female wisdom beyond his ability to comprehend, he may one day find redemption.
Poignant and heartbreaking, eloquent and frightening, impeccably rendered, it’s a fable that reminds us how our lives are shaped by childhood experiences, what we gain from them and the price we pay.Pub Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-225565-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
PROFILES
Solid and absorbing but not the tour de force the Powder Mage trilogy was.
Conclusion to McClellan’s Gods of Blood and Powder fantasy trilogy (Wrath of Empire, 2018, etc.), in which politicking assumes as much importance as magic and armies.
Dynize blood sorcerer Ka-Sedial intends to secure the three ancient monoliths known as godstones in order to make himself into a god, and he invades Fatrasta to capture two of them. Giant warrior Ben Styke, accompanied by Ka-Poel, the mute bone-eye sorcerer (and Ka-Sedial's grandaughter) whose magic can detect the stones, plans to attack Dynize and locate the third godstone. But a storm scatters Styke and Ka-Poel's ships and strands them with only 20 lancers. Worse, the stone is already under Ka-Sedial's control, forcing them to forgo brute force and attempt diplomacy. Ka-Poel's husband, Taniel, despite his near godlike powers, spends most of the book trying to catch up with them. Gen. Vlora Flint, grievously wounded and bereft of her gunpowder magic, burns for revenge yet must engage more Dynize armies and endure political interference. Ex-spy Michel Bravis and Ka-Poel's sister Ichtracia, a Privileged sorcerer, try to learn why so many Palo are mysteriously disappearing. McClellan tells an intriguing tale. Still, alert readers will wonder why the book's villain, having quickly solved his main problem, then does nothing for hundreds of pages and why many of the characters that add salt and spice to the proceedings spend too long offstage or just form wallpaper. True, the author doesn't do politics nearly as effectively as he does magic and battles, and he wrings out few surprising plot twists. His prior novels, with their hero Field Marshal Tamas, cast an unfortunately deep shadow: Tamas is one of the great fantasy heroes of recent years, and nobody here comes close.
Solid and absorbing but not the tour de force the Powder Mage trilogy was.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-40731-1
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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