Spotlighting stark characters, this focused fantasy will surely bring readers back for more adventures.
A debut novel follows a practitioner of black magic with a personal vendetta against a king, whose self-serving plans could precipitate a universe’s destruction.
Kaze Niss, a mortal in the New World, entered into a covenant with Shinigami (or Death God), Lord Aras Keep, 20 years ago. He believed it was the only way to save his father’s kingdom of Watir, which had been corrupted by power-seeking Frizas Kun. As part of Kaze’s deal with Aras, he’s become a blood magic–wielding necromancer and has a simple objective: destroy all blood tomes, books that the Shinigami originally gifted to mortals. If the Oak Gods from the dimension Oserin get a tome, they can open a portal to the Shinigami realm of Blacuir, which would end in devastation across Oar, the primordial universe. In the present day, Kaze evades Frizas, now the Watir king, who wants a tome so he can learn blood magic. Kaze hides out with old friend Ragui and his daughter, Aline. Unfortunately, Frizas unleashes ghouls that lay waste to Ragui’s village, and Kaze, in order to save Aline, makes another arrangement with Aras. The result is Kaze and Aline’s becoming linked so closely that if she dies, so will he. Both undergo yearlong training: Kaze now harnesses the power of the ghoul king while Aline is a necromancer. In the interim, Aras sends vampires and others to impede the Oak Gods from garnering strength with fresh blood and achieving their ultimate goal: to destroy the Shinigami and be the sole divine clan in Oar. Wain wisely centers this fantasy series opener on specific realms and characters, with the possibility of expanding the cast and locales in future volumes. For example, the first installment is set primarily in the New World and Blacuir. They’re only two of Oar’s four dimensions; little is revealed about Oserin or Renic, the demon world. Similarly, backstory is minimal but enlightening: Readers learn about Frizas’ scheme against Kaze’s royal family as well as the reason the protagonist harbors guilt. Though it’s clear Aline is a love interest for Kaze, she’s a dynamic supporting character; from the beginning, she yearns to practice magic in defiance of mortal laws prohibiting women from doing so. Her tie to Kaze is likewise enthralling, as any peril she’s in is a threat to both of them. Wain fills the pages with memorably bold colors, especially Kaze’s purple hair, which is complemented by his magic-infused—and scarlet red—Blood Katana. But the prose also fosters lasting impressions of myriad characters, mortals or otherwise. The ghouls’ initial appearance is particularly striking: “Hairless and with their grey skin filled with pustules and abscesses, they turned against the kneeling mage, gnashing their long, razor-sharp teeth as they walked towards him slowly.” Other characters include genre staples such as orcs, elves, and goblins along with fresher concepts: With all his powers, Kaze is the first demighoul. Meanwhile, the engrossing narrative hints at an impending war.
Spotlighting stark characters, this focused fantasy will surely bring readers back for more adventures.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973286-06-6
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
