An implacable young woman breaks royal boundaries in this medieval fantasy.
Gimlé is an island realm divided into regions of varying light. Arthur, King of the Light, Shadows, and Dark, rules from Triad Castle. He enforces the Code, laws written by Arthur the Hammer six generations ago. With Queen Sophia, his children are 10-year-old Aemond and 6-year-old Aeryn. When an upstart named Grayson begins preaching against the Code and inspiring rebels to pillage the realm, Arthur and his adviser Robert Darnald summon nearly 1,000 men from among loyal lands to stop the rebellion. Arthur’s force squashes the opposition, but a leading traitor named Murat escapes. Later, at a Council meeting of lords, Dux Bogdan Keseljevic says the Code is antiquated. He begins scheming for the throne, drawing Arthur once more into battle at the Citadel of Eternal Light. Upon Arthur’s battlefield death, Keseljevic becomes regent and demands that Sophia turn over the children. The royal family flees Triad, but only Aeryn escapes captivity. She reunites with Robert, vowing revenge against those who took her family. Growing up in the Shadows, Aeryn learns sword fighting and becomes a fearsome young woman. She forms lifelong friendships with Dux Chandrasejhar’s son, Rishi, and her companion Robyn Nakagawa. Unfortunately, Aeryn makes fresh enemies, too. Alexander’s engrossing novel is steeped in detailed medieval politics and battlefield tactics. The most prominent fantasy element is Gimlé’s strange, fixed relationship to the Eye—the planet’s star—which causes plants to move, “not with the wind, but so as to have the light of the Eye fall on the leaf.” The battles are depicted with vibrant gore, as in the line “Arthur’s next cut took off the arm that had been holding the shield.” But they do highlight Aeryn’s absence from much of the narrative’s first quarter. Though willful and imaginative, the protagonist is easily lost in the sprawling medieval panorama. Killing eventually becomes Aeryn’s signature talent as she seeks vengeance and possibly a new life. While the tale offers a rousing finale, it slights powerful queens throughout both fiction and history.
A vivid, engaging, if bulky fantasy in which violence carries the day. (map, character guide)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7361984-2-1
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Alton Kremer
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: FANTASY | GENERAL FANTASY | HISTORICAL FANTASY | EPIC FANTASY | ACTION & ADVENTURE FANTASY
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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
Categories: FANTASY | EPIC FANTASY | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL FANTASY
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SEEN & HEARD
This novel’s magic goes far beyond the dragons.
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As women around the world inexplicably transform into dragons, a young girl struggles to take care of her cousin in 1950s America.
It’s indecent to speak about dragons, just as it would be indecent to talk about, say, menstruation or the burning, building rage that so many women feel day to day. Because it’s such a forbidden topic, to the extent that scientists who study the dragon transformations are silenced by the government, no one really understands why “dragooning” happens or how it works. When Alex’s Aunt Marla is among the thousands of women who all turn into dragons together on the same day in 1955, her beloved cousin, Beatrice, becomes her adopted sister. And when Alex is in high school and her own mother dies of cancer, her father sticks her in a cheap apartment and tells her she’s old enough to raise Beatrice on her own. Alex inherited her mother’s talent for math and science, and she struggles between her own rage at how her abilities are constantly diminished by the men around her and her resentment that her Aunt Marla became a dragon and abandoned her and Beatrice. But the older Beatrice gets, the more she longs to become a dragon herself, and Alex lives in terror that Beatrice will leave her behind. In lesser hands the dragon metaphor would feel simplistic and general, but Barnhill uses it to imagine different ways of living, loving, and caring for each other. The result is a complex, heartfelt story about following your heart and opening your mind to new possibilities.
This novel’s magic goes far beyond the dragons.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-385-54822-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION | FANTASY | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL FANTASY
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