A dense, complex, and engrossing second installment of a genuinely promising high fantasy series.
An epic tale of tiny humans and warring insect empires continues in this sequel.
Carlton’s (Prophets of the Ghost Ants, 2011) saga picks up where the earlier novel left off: in a world called Dranveria, where humans exist alongside various species of insects (they’re all roughly the same size). Here, a former lower-caste, midden-slave human named Anand finds himself in the unlikely position of national savior. He led an insect army to defend his home of the Slope against the invading forces of Hulkrish and their Prophet-Commander, his own cousin Pleckoo. Against all odds, Anand was victorious, but Pleckoo isn’t dead—the threat posed by the followers of the god Hulkro remains. This latest volume employs a split narrative in order to trace the separate adventures of Anand—who must deal with the many problems facing his fledgling kingdom, from new rumblings of war to a building refugee crisis and potentially deadly palace intrigue—and Pleckoo, now a fugitive. Pleckoo seemingly has the whole of Dranveria against him—except for Hulkro, in whose service he is still a vision-driven fanatic despite dream-world visitations from other insect deities. “Hulkro does not rule the Netherworld. I do,” one god tells him. “Where is Little Termite now?” “High above, in the night sky, where He rules over all,” the faithful Pleckoo responds. “You have said He is the only god,” the rival deity answers, “yet here I am, deciding your fate for eternity.” The proceedings are suffused with the complicated dynamics of clashing religions, and this volume in the Antasy series places slightly more emphasis on Pleckoo’s story, making it an intriguing counterpoint to the previous installment. As in that earlier novel, Carlton displays in his insect high fantasy tale a completely assured—and totally infectious—imagination while employing precisely controlled narrative pacing. There’s a minor strand of purple prose running through the book that can easily be read as a winking homage to the hyperventilation of classic pulp fantasy authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs (“Knowing he was alone, Pleckoo fell to his hands and knees and wailed. He choked on his own sobbing, hoping to cough out the hundred thousand demons that warred inside him”; and Anand’s reflection on his predicament later in the story: “My wife is the pregnant prisoner of the diseased man inflicting his madness on the world”). This kind of rhetorical playfulness perfectly serves the boilerplate of the plot, and it’s expertly balanced with Carlton’s insightful realization of the internal facets of his realm. Anand, for instance, is still scornfully referred to as “Roach Boy” by some of the very people he tried to help. When he asks what he’s done to warrant such hostility, he’s told: “What haven’t you done? You’ve turned our lives downside up. We was fine in the old way, as good as anybody else in the midden.” The characters of Pleckoo and Anand dominate the volume’s two scenarios, but the tale unfolds in a way that very naturally expands to embrace not only a host of secondary characters, but also an abundance of intricate worldbuilding. Readers should keep in mind that the titles of these novels are apt: No detail of Dranveria’s vast theological mosaic is left unexplored.
A dense, complex, and engrossing second installment of a genuinely promising high fantasy series.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-242977-3
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Harper Voyager Impulse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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 celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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