An immensely satisfying final volume in Carlton’s humans-and-insects saga.
The conclusion to a fantasy trilogy in which embattled tiny humans vie with insects.
This final volume in Carlton’s epic Antasy series takes readers back to a world where people have evolved to insect size and are surrounded by terrifying predators on land and in the air. The first book, Prophets of the Ghost Ants (2016),introduced readers to a wretched human underling named Anand, who dreams of freeing his people from the terror of the Ghost Ants and eventually founds the new and enlightened nation of Bee-Jor. As the series progressed through the second volume, Prophet of the Termite God (2019),readers followed Anand’s journey through scenes of war, torture, and hairbreadth adventure. That adventure concludes in this final volume, in which the realm of Bee-Jor is tottering due to outside and internal threats, including one that’s represented by one of the book’s most intriguing characters: the mad Queen Trellana, who threatens the new nation’s very existence in these pages. This plot of this series entry involves a blinded and desperate Anand being captured by a mysterious group, among whom he makes new friends and allies while in captivity; meanwhile, he agonizes over his ignorance of what’s happening in faction-torn Bee-Jor, where war is looming and a tense situation isn’t being helped at all by Queen Trellana’s delusional histrionics.
Carlton skillfully manipulates readers’ feelings of anticipation about the fate of Bee-Jor and about Anand himself, and he does so right from the beginning of this complex volume. The saga of Anand, also known as “Roach Boy,” is still central to the sprawling narrative, but many other important plotlines converge in this concluding entry, which the author fills with engaging characters and gritty, often violent Game of Thrones–style action and realpolitik. Over the course of three books, the author has been pursuing this story with gusto and intense readability, often through the use of vivid, gripping language—as when Anand is in the midst of traveling, exhausted, and Carlton sets the scene by noting that “Night slithered in, as cold and damp as an earth worm.” Overall, this is an extensively fleshed-out world that’s raw and brutal but very satisfyingly imagined. Unlike in many other epic fantasy novels, the characters in this story (human and otherwise) really seem to live in this strange world; the internal consistency of the reality Carlton has imagined is solid to the last detail. This third volume is very much aimed at existing fans of the series; it begins with a large glossary of dramatis personae, but it lacks the kind of series-to-this-point recap that’s common in other fantasy tomes, and that’s sorely needed here; without it, there’s little chance that new readers can come onboard with this book. This is unfortunate, as the various aspects of Anand’s character are more effectively rendered in these pages than in previous entries, and Carlton’s handling of the multifaceted story has never been more confident.
An immensely satisfying final volume in Carlton’s humans-and-insects saga.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-242979-7
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Harper Voyager Impulse
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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