This appealing, well-paced fantasy tale offers a deep dive into what makes its main character tick.
In this debut YA novel, an African-American teenager gets the opportunity to attend a school that trains her for an age-old battle between the forces of Order and the Trickster gods.
When a mysterious stranger named Alex arrives at Jamie’s door, promoting the Kootenai Academy for the Specialist of Special Children, the teen instinctively understands that he’s a man of many faces. (The theme of masks goes on to reverberate throughout the novel.) It turns out that Jamie is one of Trickster Spider’s Chosen, and Alex aims to train her for upcoming fights against evil forces. Alex offers Jamie lessons that combine exercise and philosophy, particularly addressing questions of good and evil. Jamie and her fellow Chosen students— Russ, Joe, María, and Nettle—all seem to agree with Alex’s statement that “We can all think of a good reason to kill someone.” They’re all given necklaces that channel the powers of Uazit—a being who may be the aforementioned Trickster Spider, although the narrative always sidesteps a clear explanation. Hansen syncopates scenes of their time in school with scenes of their “Traveling,” during which they use their powers to teleport to an unnamed location, where they often battle enemies. These confrontations are brutal and bloody, and Jamie soon becomes enamored of violence. She also becomes captivated by her fellow student Nettle and struggles to accept her attraction to her. During this time, Jamie also develops the power of “seeing” into different realms, which manifests itself in strange, complex dreams, and a power that she calls the “second between seconds”—an ability to stop time. In this first installment in a series, Hansen effectively melds a coming-of-age tale—complete with no-one-understands-me teenage angst and confusion over sexuality—with brutal sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Throughout the story, the author offers excellent pacing, creating an engaging amalgam of violence, metaphysics, and characterization while also deftly generating reader enthusiasm for the next book in the series.
This appealing, well-paced fantasy tale offers a deep dive into what makes its main character tick.Pub Date: March 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5450-8957-6
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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