A lean, mean fantasy novel that’s likely to leave readers dented and bruised.
A young woman cursed with a powerful paranormal ability takes drastic action to escape her fate.
The prolific and often profane Wendig (Zeroes, 2015, etc.) originally published this novel in the U.K. in 2012, and he seemed to catch readers by surprise with the foulmouthed, punk-rock girl at its heart. The first in a series, this delightfully vicious and bloody urban horror novel provides a perversely entertaining introduction to a dangerous fugitive with a little something special up her sleeves. Miriam Black is a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, deeply paranoid runaway who's been living with a unique curse for eight years: whenever she lays a hand on someone, she sees exactly, precisely when and how they're going to die. Sure, it freaks her out, but she doesn’t let it stop her from dropping in on perverts and low-lifes at the moments of their demises to lift their wallets. “The rule is, it’s one and done,” she tells one amateur sleuth. “I get the vision once. It doesn’t keep happening over and over again—though, I’ll tell you, some of the really bad ones will keep a girl up at night.” Miriam is disturbed when she touches Louis, a seemingly normal truck driver, only to discover that the last thing he says at the moment of his death is Miriam’s name. Soon, there are killers after her, and in order to survive the experience and figure things out, Miriam must go to extremes to learn whether fate can be beaten or not. This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea—Wendig spins his story with Tarantino-esque multiplicity, and the book’s pyrotechnic profanity, bloody ultraviolence, and lack of romance are unlikely to appeal to fans of Laurell K. Hamilton or Patricia Briggs. But for those who like their noir with a twist of horror, this novel provides an engaging blend of occult surrealism, nihilism, and startling violence.
A lean, mean fantasy novel that’s likely to leave readers dented and bruised.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5699-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery.
Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition...and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood. This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences.
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31319-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.
In the first volume of a trilogy, a fresh cataclysm besets a physically unstable world whose ruling society oppresses its most magically powerful inhabitants.
The continent ironically known as the Stillness is riddled with fault lines and volcanoes and periodically suffers from Seasons, civilization-destroying tectonic catastrophes. It’s also occupied by a small population of orogenes, people with the ability to sense and manipulate thermal and kinetic energy. They can quiet earthquakes and quench volcanoes…but also touch them off. While they’re necessary, they’re also feared and frequently lynched. The “lucky” ones are recruited by the Fulcrum, where the brutal training hones their powers in the service of the Empire. The tragic trap of the orogene's life is told through three linked narratives (the link is obvious fairly quickly): Damaya, a fierce, ambitious girl new to the Fulcrum; Syenite, an angry young woman ordered to breed with her bitter and frighteningly powerful mentor and who stumbles across secrets her masters never intended her to know; and Essun, searching for the husband who murdered her young son and ran away with her daughter mere hours before a Season tore a fiery rift across the Stillness. Jemisin (The Shadowed Sun, 2012, etc.) is utterly unflinching; she tackles racial and social politics which have obvious echoes in our own world while chronicling the painfully intimate struggle between the desire to survive at all costs and the need to maintain one’s personal integrity. Beneath the story’s fantastic trappings are incredibly real people who undergo intense, sadly believable pain.
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-22929-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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