An inventive but uneven tale that explores the possibilities of creative freedom.
A modern-day fantasy debut focuses on the creation of a new world.
Keely Fletcher is a young writer who finds herself at a literary party. On her way home from the dull event, things take a strange turn. Keely is soon whisked away to a magical world where she, along with a collection of other creative types, is free to make whatever she wants with godlike powers. Keely has been sent there at the behest of a mage from another realm with a fondness for red shoes. She is joined by others, including a painter named Angel Montes and an architect called Reinhold Wynne. Kadro, as the mage comes to be known, keeps this new “Sandbox” and all it contains locked up in a bottle. He explains that he wants to create a new world but “he’s not imaginative enough to do it himself.” Although the world features many nuances, Keely and her cohorts wind up creating real forests of colorful trees, homes, and even living humanoids. But not everything is fun and games. This world also contains monsters, and the creators are not allowed to leave. It is the latter point that upsets many of them. It may sound exciting to fashion a new world, but what does it end up involving in practice? Daveler’s early chapters get the story up and running in an inviting way. What will people like Keely find once they are in the midst of a place that they could hardly ever have imagined? It is an enticing idea with near limitless possibilities, although the results are mixed. While one particularly deviant individual makes his own harem, others chatter about all the things they are missing from their normal lives. But is it really worth complaining about unpaid bills when one could, say, make a talking dragon? It will take some time for readers to process the assortment of intriguing individuals trapped in the bottle (not to mention their rich backstories). The real fun comes in seeing how this Twilight Zone–esque situation will play out. Keely and the others can’t remain trapped there forever. Or can they?
An inventive but uneven tale that explores the possibilities of creative freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73313-452-1
Page Count: 379
Publisher: Block Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
Reasonably involving while you’re reading it but ultimately disappointing and incomplete feeling.
A feud between two powerful witch families heats up, thanks to two pairs of star-crossed lovers and an ambitious middle son, in this stand-alone by the author of The Atlas Six (2022).
In New York City, Lazar Fedorov, aka Koschei the Deathless, trades in illicit magical items, fantastical creatures, and expensive favors extended to the desperate. His three sons—Dimitri, Roman, and Lev—aid him in his dealings. Meanwhile, Marya Antonova, aka Baba Yaga, and her seven daughters sell high-end beauty products and illegal magical hallucinogens. As Yaga prepares to extend her drug sales to nonmagical buyers and her eldest daughter, Marya, also called Masha, discovers that the Fedorovs are interfering with their business, both sides plot to finish off their rivals. Matters head toward a tragic direction as Masha and Dimitri reignite the embers of their long-ago love, Masha’s youngest sister, Sasha, becomes romantically entangled with Lev, and Roman makes his own violent plans to gain his father’s approval. What appears to be an unholy magical cross between The Godfather and Romeo and Juliet leads to an expected high body count—and that’s only halfway through the book. Since this is a fantasy novel, Blake throws in a twist that initially feels like a shocking swerve, but we’re soon headed in a similar, but potentially even more destructive, direction. Several characters exhibit deep and interesting emotional growth (some based on a clever use of magic drawn straight from the Russian fairy tales the book references), but others are never fully fleshed out. In addition, the plot unfortunately coalesces predictably (and not nearly as intricately as the scheming characters, and probably the author, imagine it does), and the denouement seems less inevitably tragic than sadly pointless. Meanwhile, many opportunities for intriguing worldbuilding (how magic works, how witches govern themselves to hide their magic from nonwitches, where magical creatures come from, what non–New York witch societies are like) are never picked up.
Reasonably involving while you’re reading it but ultimately disappointing and incomplete feeling.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-25-088485-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
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