This outstanding series opener feels like the beginning of an epic Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
This debut archetypal fantasy adventure revolves around a young man with no past who leads a group of unlikely heroes against a seemingly unstoppable evil.
Krell has only been a paladin of the god ReckNor for a short time, ever since his alcoholic mentor, Olgar, found him on the docks of Watford after he was rescued at sea floating on ship debris. But Krell is a survivor, and ReckNor has taken a liking to the courageous warrior. The god even speaks to him (inside his head) frequently. Still, Olgar warns Krell: “ReckNor is wild and tempestuous, like the sea. One minute it’s calm and gives you fish to feed your family, the next it washes them all out to sea and drowns them.” When workers at a dwarven mining camp mysteriously disappear, Krell and other adventurers are tasked with finding them. After this first mission, the misfit group goes on to investigate a haunted tower and inadvertently uncovers a grand-scale conspiracy that includes an invasion of amphibious creatures that worship a mad god. There are numerous noteworthy narrative elements here to satisfy even the most demanding fantasy fan. Krell’s eclectic companions are all memorable and intriguing in their own ways: a fey-touched sorcerer, a hulking orc, a badass female halfling, a warrior monk, a dwarven priest. Krell, not surprisingly, is the most complex character—a young (and naïve) paladin who is just beginning to understand his powers and destiny. The pacing of this first installment of a series is breakneck. Cole consciously structures the novel this way by removing the low intensity sequences that usually act as bridges between the high adrenaline scenes. This story is pure action and adventure from beginning to end. Additionally, the various monstrosities aren’t the stereotypical fare. The companions battle undead ghouls, cave wraiths, and sea devils, to name but a few. Lastly, the tale has an impressive scope. Although there is a complete story arc with a satisfying ending, this volume is just the start of a much larger saga.
This outstanding series opener feels like the beginning of an epic Dungeons & Dragons campaign.Pub Date: June 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-228-86867-5
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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