No fangs, capes, hissing or bats: just a wise immortal moved by vast pity.
The latest entry in Yarbro’s impressive historical fantasy cycle, each independently intelligible, about the saintly vampire Count Saint-Germain (Commedia Della Morte, 2012, etc.).
The year is 1225, just after the Fifth Crusade. An uneasy stalemate prevails between Christianity and Islam, while the seemingly unstoppable Mongol armies of Jenghiz Khan threaten both Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Saint-Germain, here known as Sidi Sandjer’min, lives quietly in an Egyptian monastery with his servant, Ruthier, a ghoul and fellow immortal. Sieur Horembaud du Langnor, an arrogant and impetuous crusader from English-ruled Aquitaine, requires a guide for his pilgrimage south to remote Ethiopia, where he must pray at the Chapel of the Holy Grail. Since it is no longer safe for Sandjer’min to remain where he is, he agrees to help. Joining Sieur Horembaud will be a large assorted party, some of whom are fellow penitents: Sieur Horembaud’s shadow, the suspicious friar Frater Anteus; Torquil des Lichiens, a crusader dying of severe sunstroke; a nun, Sorer Imogen, and her young half brother Heneri; the English noblewoman, Margrethe of Rutland; and still others who hope to find valuable relics or gold. Among the dangers faced by the party will be the blistering heat that obliges them to travel at night, the annual rise of the Nile, as well as snakes, scorpions, wild beasts and bandits. For his part, Sandjer’min must translate for them, minister to their various wounds, injuries and illnesses, and try to prevent the pilgrims from turning savagely on each other. Once again, Yarbro offers a wonderfully rich historical backdrop, beautifully framed with a series of explicatory epistles, vividly drawn scenes and a notable cast of characters, to which the meandering plot fails to do justice.
No fangs, capes, hissing or bats: just a wise immortal moved by vast pity.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3400-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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