A brainy, action-packed fantasy outing even more complex and sophisticated than series opener Foundry’s Edge (2015)....
Phoebe Plumm and Micah Tanner bravely search for the mysterious Occulyth, which they hope will resolve all of their challenges in this second of the Books of Ore.
Phoebe blames herself for the loss of her father, Dr. Jules Plumm, a former key employee of the Foundry, the powerful Meridian-based technology company that exploits the metal creatures of Mehk. Meanwhile the Covenant, the resistance army made up of disaffected mehkans, is fighting back against the Foundry’s imperialism and looking to Phoebe and Micah to help. Phoebe, who turns 13 in this installment, is thrust into the limelight, seeking an illuminated path and wondering how to act around ardent warriors who treat her like a saint. Baity and Zelkowicz, both animators, enter into some heavy-duty worldbuilding in this volume, complete with an origin story, new allies and enemies, and an extensive original vocabulary. They even create a whole religion—including excerpts from Scripture—that is refreshingly female-dominated. The novel explores themes of political, environmental, and even spiritual plundering as well as what it means to be Waybound. Phoebe insists: “People will change….They’ll have to.”
A brainy, action-packed fantasy outing even more complex and sophisticated than series opener Foundry’s Edge (2015). (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-14)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6239-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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