While ambitious and high-flying, this millennial tale remains bedazzled by the elite.
A novel follows the fortunes of young people in Shanghai and New York City who seek status, wealth, and sex against the backdrop of dynastic reincarnation.
In Butterflies: The Strange Metamorphosis of Fact & Fiction In Today’s World (2015), Harrison wrote about an exclusive Shanghai sorority and the young men in its circle, while other chapters described a Creator and something called the Logos Simulation. In this outing, set around the turn of the millennium, the author mixes up a similar brew. A foreword explains that a new leader will arise. Jews call him the Messiah; the Mongols (i.e., the Chinese) call him a Mandate. By the volume’s end, the latest Mandate “had firmly ensconced himself in the place of the world’s next powerful elite,” who would reign over the globe’s most powerful country, constituting “a reincarnation of dynastic proportions.” The work explores this ensconcing in a narrative with several main themes: a man’s guilt over a car accident that kills his daughter and her friend; the sorority; young men whose lives encompass high finance, nightclubs, and business deals; sex, romance, and political intrigue, including blackmail and bribery; and overlapping versions of the same characters and events. Some readers may enjoy the meta-ness, as well as Harrison’s brash confidence in the privileged, fast-moving world he describes. But the author’s presentation of girls as young as 14 and their sexuality make for uncomfortable reading. Just plain odd is the tale’s breathless fascination with young, beautiful, rich Asian/Eurasian girls (Harrison constantly mentions their race) and their sorority. The sorority, which mainly seems to exist as an excuse for masturbation scenes, is said to embody China’s deep respect for cultivating female leadership. The book’s self-importance also becomes a turnoff, for example with its appendix, “Understanding The Millennial Reincarnations.” Here a supposed “Professor of Millennial Literature” (obviously, the author himself) compares the book favorably with Joyce’s Ulysses and provides a short essay explaining the novel’s themes and symbolism, the better to grasp its “true brilliance.”
While ambitious and high-flying, this millennial tale remains bedazzled by the elite.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5175-1604-8
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.
This doorstopper epic fantasy and trilogy opener was originally self-published in 2014.
The details that give this ingeniously plotted yarn its backbone emerge gradually—and are not always entirely clear. Twenty years ago, a war swept away and annihilated the tyrannical Augurs when their formidable magic inexplicably faltered. Their servants, the Gifted, whose lesser magic derives from Essence (Islington has an irritating habit of capitalizing things), were forcibly constrained to obey the Four Tenets, meaning they can no longer use their magic to cause harm even in self-defense. At a school-cum-sanctuary-cum-prison for the Gifted, three 16-year-old friends, Davian, Wirr, and Asha, face their final tests. Though an excellent student, Davian cannot use Essence and faces a cruel exile. He decides to abscond. Wirr believes Davian’s an Augur whose higher-order magic blocks his ability to channel Essence, and he insists on joining him. Ilseth Tenvar, a seemingly sympathetic Elder, gives Davian a mysterious magic box to guide his progress. The next morning Asha wakes to a nightmare of her own. On the road Davian encounters the strange, scarred Gifted Taeris Sarr, who three years ago saved his life (Davian doesn’t remember the incident) and supposedly was executed for his pains. In the far north an ancient evil stirs, while in a related development, Caeden wakes in a forest to find himself covered in blood and with no memory of anything. So, in time-honored fashion, nobody is what they seem to be, everybody has a secret agenda, and the key players all lack pivotal memories. And while there’s nothing much new here, Islington’s natural storytelling ability provides incessant plot twists and maintains a relentless pace. The characters have well-rounded personalities and don’t make decisions or errors merely to advance the plot, even if they all sound and act the same youngish age.
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27409-8
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery.
Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition...and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood. This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences.
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31319-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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