A horror fantasy packed with creative swagger.
This novel pits a motley group of musicians against a beast-worshiping cult.
Bedloom trees are “thick, twisted, pointy things,” good for hanging criminals. Bedloomtown, or Bedlam, is split into a prosperous North End and a downtrodden South End. When a nicely dressed woman dies in Midtown of what looks like the sweating sickness, Chief Inspector Donal Wyne investigates. Luckily, his work is aided by testimony from Cael “the Enchanter” Namold, the beloved bard of the Open Casket tavern. The clever bard, a former inspector, deduces that the woman was a violinist, possibly pregnant, and killed by poison. Most disturbing was her insistence before her death that “the eye…they’re everywhere.” Cael recruits his friend and disgraced coroner, Gregor “Sid” Maven, to perform an autopsy. The bard then taps the thief Senjelica Tend and her young ward, Lucy Whipper, to help break into the morgue. While the autopsy does reveal the victim harboring a life, it’s not a human child—it’s something furry and monstrous. Worse, the creature escapes. The Temple of the Eye, responsible for returning its deity Fen’dir, Keeper of Shadows, to physical form, doesn’t take Cael’s interference lightly. The bard, though a champion of the new system of thinking called science, must work with mystics like Orman Hys if he’s to save Bedlam. Huskins’ (Atlas, 2019, etc.) epic fantasy offers a meaty stew Dickens would have relished, complete with a gang of juvenile pickpockets called the Bunch and a progressive plot thread condemning predatory banks. Cael sits comfortably in the Sherlock Holmes mold, eschewing superstition in favor of logic (and sarcasm, frequently saying things like “No, no, no. Never. Not I, no. A bit, yeah”). Superb worldbuilding graces every page, from the author’s philosophers (Yoro Ricini) to cultural oddities (Trevor’s Traveling Troupe). Lines such as “It was long and lean, like a slim man, but black rags hung from it like a snake shedding its skin” add creature-feature ambiance to the well-crafted fantasy. There is a middle episode involving a time machine that some may find intrusive. But ultimately, Cael believes that storytelling is about spreading hope itself.
A horror fantasy packed with creative swagger.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Nine Dusks Entertainment
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 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.
