An enchanting introduction to a magical bitch on wheels, to be continued.
A freelance spellcaster is in love with drugs and on the run from a primeval evil in midtown Manhattan. What could go wrong?
Everything old is new again in this comically horrific team-up between prolific Malaysian horror writer Khaw and Kadrey, taking a brief and well-deserved break from his popular Sandman Slim series. Whether it’s the ancient, squelchy things hunting our heroes or the novel voice Khaw brings to the genre’s blood-and-one-liners schtick, this adults-only episode may not be for everyone, but it’s certainly something memorable. When we meet nearly-30 Julie Crews, she’s already tied up in exorcising a demon at a bachelorette party before retiring to her squalid apartment for Korean street food, vodka, and drugs. We’re soon introduced to the book’s New York City underground, where Lovecraftian horrors control Wall Street, things older than humans still walk the Earth, and people like Julie use magic to regulate funkiness. The book’s complicating events don’t take long to stir things up. First, Julie’s ex Tyler, a corporate bootlicker, hires her as part of his plan to get promoted by sucking up to his firm’s…patron?—an eldritch horror called The Mother Who Eats that would make Pinhead wet himself. Secondly, Julie’s best friend, Sarah, shows up at her door, the victim of domestic abuse. Bloodshed ensues, natch, but there’s some good stuff among the overstuffed plot, not least the Wick-ian worldbuilding the authors employ to lurid effectiveness. Tyler is saddled with Annabeth Fall, an ice queen from his firm’s security division with cutthroat ambition and a low tolerance for his bullshit, while Sarah’s violent ex Dan nearly kills Julie. Meanwhile, on Julie’s side, we meet her prehistoric landlady, St. Joan, and her “guy in the chair,” Dead Air, who join her reluctant crusade to kill an angel, kiss the girl, and end this spooky bullshit once and for all.
An enchanting introduction to a magical bitch on wheels, to be continued.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781250867025
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Nightfire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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