A suspenseful adventure but a hollow expansion of the Star Wars universe.
When sudden disaster shuts down hyperspace travel across the galaxy, four Jedi and the crew of a shipping vessel find themselves stranded on an ancient space station haunted by the dark side.
Unlike many Jedi who long for danger, Reath, a 17-year-old human Padawan, thrives in the Archives. However, when an unexpected assignment calls him to the frontier, he has no choice but to follow orders. This unwanted adventure takes a treacherous turn when Reath and his traveling companions make an emergency exit from hyperspace to a remote sector of the galaxy with intense solar flares and an abandoned space station. To make matters worse, the survivors from other ships who are also seeking refuge have little interest in cooperation, and an insidious dark-side presence looms aboard the station. Within each chapter, third-person perspectives shift among multiple characters, including interludes with flashbacks. The plot (set in an era before The Phantom Menace) maintains a fast pace with exciting twists, but jargon litters the worldbuilding without much clarifying physical description or explanation, requiring in-depth Star Wars knowledge from readers. Primary human characters are assumed White or have tan or golden skin. Queer representation appears in the background with a same-gender couple and an asexual character.
A suspenseful adventure but a hollow expansion of the Star Wars universe. (Science fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-368-05728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come.
A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
A fiercely hopeful exploration of loyalty, perception, and agency in the face of fear, misinformation, and violence.
As Emberfall and Syhl Shallow prepare a Royal Challenge to promote unity between their countries, the vocally anti-magic Truthbringers conspire to turn public favor against King Grey.
Set four years after Kemmerer’s Cursebreaker trilogy, this timely, nuanced series opener introduces teen narrators Callyn, Jax, and Tycho, whose alternating perspectives navigate moral ambiguities and confront past and present traumas. Baker Callyn and blacksmith Jax have supported one another through many hardships: the accident that claimed one of Jax’s feet, the loss of Callyn’s parents, and the ongoing physical abuse Jax sustains from his father. Pushed to the point of desperation, Jax and Callyn accept a dangerous but well-paid job conveying potentially treasonous messages for the Truthbringers—but after a chance encounter with Tycho, the King’s Courier, the friends realize they’re in way over their heads. Notably, despite widespread distrust of magic, Tycho and others in Grey’s inner circle wear rings of Iishellasan steel that allow them to borrow his power, foreshadowing further revelations about how the magic functions. Tycho also faces scrutiny for his growing friendship with Jax and Callyn, and as the first Royal Challenge approaches, political and romantic intrigue abound. Both primary romances offer a masterclass in organic yet explicit depictions of consent, including a smoldering queer romance that’s profound in its treatment of intimacy with a sexual assault survivor. Major characters default to White.
A fiercely hopeful exploration of loyalty, perception, and agency in the face of fear, misinformation, and violence. (map, character list) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0912-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
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