by Cynthia Hey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 2012
Skewed to the younger end of the YA-fantasy spectrum, the author’s adroit style maintains a buoyant tone even with...
Stanlin, a friendly space alien drawn to a kindly human girl, defies his planet’s nonintervention policy and reveals himself to her when an incipient epidemic endangers all life on Earth.
Debut author Hey’s smooth, light-treading prose makes a fast read out of material that other writers could have been tempted to render as fashionably dark, even nightmarish. Though he looks like a bald, big-eyed Whitley Strieber-esque space invader, Stanlin is a student-age member of a friendly alien race from the planet Capton in the Andromeda Galaxy. They routinely visit and monitor other worlds, teleporting by thought (no flying saucers here) and then shape-shifting or remaining invisible in accordance with Capton’s strict nonintervention policy for less developed civilizations. Knowing Earth from his field trips, Stanlin is especially smitten with Sylvia, a junior high schooler. However, soon the aliens learn that a disease tied to animal influenza could effectively wipe out all terrestrial life. One potential disease-carrier is a youthful serial killer named Ned, convinced ever since a childhood brain trauma that he’s on a mission from a vengeful God to cleanse the world. (Stanlin’s people, meanwhile, respect God as a warm, nondenominational “Highest Authority.”) Stanlin reveals himself to Sylvia, using advanced technology to peer into future possibilities, and they try to thwart the coming catastrophe by initiating a grass-roots animal-welfare program. While the material may seem a bit childish to older tweens and readers who have graduated to the gothic gloom of lovesick teenage vampires, Hey’s voice remains consistently breezy, nontaxing and up-tempo—whether the matter is cute puppies or extinction-level murder. Even a subplot about a vengeful drug criminal plotting infanticide doesn’t take the cheery tone down too many notches. Stanlin and his kin (with their favorite exclamation, “Superbly super!”) are similar to past, lightweight extraterrestrials of popular fiction who interacted with Fred Flintstone or Archie and Jughead.
Skewed to the younger end of the YA-fantasy spectrum, the author’s adroit style maintains a buoyant tone even with apocalypse on the horizon.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477420904
Page Count: 314
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Samantha Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2023
Prepare yourself for the long haul. This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.
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Magic, dragons, and prophecy are welcome threads in a fantasy that extols the power of motherhood, friendship, and self-love to change the world.
This prequel to Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019) has a similar scope to that 800-page fantasy, but dragon lore is less important here than the stories of people and events that become catalysts for The Priory's tale. Each chapter is grounded by a cardinal direction, lest you lose your bearings, with the four corners of the world home to central characters whom readers will get to know intimately. In the West lives Glorian, heir to the queendom of Inys. Her rule is based on the sacred Berethnet bloodline, whose power originates from the knight Galian Berethnet's banishing of the Nameless One, a giant fire-breathing wyrm birthed from the world’s core. In the East, Dumai lives on a mountain peak and trains as a godsinger, someone who harbors a human connection to the dragons the East worship as gods. In the South, Tunuva is a warrior of the Priory, a sisterhood that worships the Mother who is seen as the true banisher of the Nameless One. Their beliefs are so different and their societies so distanced that they don't know of the others' existence. And yet, when the balance of nature starts to waver, bringing whispers of new fire-breathing threats like the Nameless One, these women find themselves united by a common cause to save their people and seek truth about the higher powers at war with one another. This story is epic in scope, but its density is the sort that pulls you in. The biggest pull comes from the humanity displayed by the central characters, whose hearts ache for their children and their futures in a world fraught with turmoil. The fire-breathers bring more than destruction in their wake; they also bring a plaguelike sickness that will elicit sharp parallels to the Covid-19 pandemic. The very real struggles these characters face, whether they ride dragons or bear the suffocating rules of monarchy, make this a consuming read. While some fantasy tropes feel like they've only been added to the story's surface, the pages keep turning because of the heart-wrenching reasons that characters are driven to action. The heroes shine in their uniqueness, with diverse family dynamics interwoven throughout and representation ranging from queer lords and warriors to genderfluid alchemists. This prequel stands on its own, but a word of warning to people who have read The Priory: You'll want to reread it in order to benefit from the deeper knowledge of what came before.
Prepare yourself for the long haul. This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63557-792-1
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
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by V.E. Schwab ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2020
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.
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When you deal with the darkness, everything has a price.
“Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Adeline tried to heed this warning, but she was desperate to escape a wedding she didn’t want and a life spent trapped in a small town. So desperate that she didn’t notice the sun going down. And so she made a deal: For freedom, and time, she will surrender her soul when she no longer wants to live. But freedom came at a cost. Adeline didn’t want to belong to anyone; now she is forgotten every time she slips out of sight. She has spent 300 years living like a ghost, unable even to speak her own name. She has affairs with both men and women, but she can never have a comfortable intimacy built over time—only the giddy rush of a first meeting, over and over again. So when she meets a boy who, impossibly, remembers her, she can’t walk away. What Addie doesn’t know is why Henry is the first person in 300 years who can remember her. Or why Henry finds her as compelling as she finds him. And, of course, she doesn’t know how the devil she made a deal with will react if he learns that the rules of their 300-year-long game have changed. This spellbinding story unspools in multiple timelines as Addie moves through history, learning the rules of her curse and the whims of her captor. Meanwhile, both Addie and the reader get to know Henry and understand what sets him apart. This is the kind of book you stay up all night reading—rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted.
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8756-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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by V.E. Schwab ; illustrated by Manuel Šumberac
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