A fantasy novel with bewildering lore but an appealing heroine and strong action scenes.
In this contemporary fantasy series installment, a young woman continues to explore her destiny as a magic user who can enter any fictional story.
“My name is Elana Black,” says this novel’s 20-something narrator; “I work in an indie bookstore…and oh yeah, I fight monsters. I am not reasonable.” Ever since she discovered her magical skills, including the ability to infiltrate fictional worlds and change them, she’s been studying magic with the Aos Si, a guardian figure who resides in “The Knowing” (the “land before creation”), and archery from Chalsarda, a warrior Elf. Now Freyja, the Norse goddess of love and war, wants Elana to kill her brother, Freyr; she believes that this will prevent Ragnarök, the destined final battle (and death) of the gods. However, Freyr knows of this plan and has chosen his own champion—a sorcerer named Kodran Osvifsson, who’s fictional in our world, and whose weapon is a dreadful, unstoppable monster called the Nuckalavee. A contingent of Fae called the Gardeners wants something from Elana, too. As if that weren’t enough, a prophecy regarding her missing childhood friend, Lucia Cruz, will soon be fulfilled—which, according to Elana’s vision, will mean the death of someone close to her. Bell (Empty Threat, 2017) gives his bookworm heroine a wryly wisecracking millennial voice: “hardly anyone else has worked retail while also training in archaic forms of combat, knowledge of magic, and enough studying that even I started to resent reading.” In-jokes about fantasy and sci-fi characters, including cheesy men who leer at women (“Everyone notices, and everyone is grossed out by it, okay?” says Elana), also amuse. The fast-paced, jam-packed plot becomes confusing, however, and it might have benefited from a slower pace to allow readers to consider its implications. For example, if all worlds are both true and fictional, then what exactly is the role of an author? Also, Bell overplays the fact that Elana keeps rejecting her friends’ offers of help.
A fantasy novel with bewildering lore but an appealing heroine and strong action scenes.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-979994-92-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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