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THE LOSERS

A rare mainstream outing (High Hunt, 1973) from bestselling fantasist Eddings: an often disconcerting scrutiny of people seemingly fated to end up on life's acrapheap. Young Raphael Taylor has it all: he's handsome, charming, a gifted athlete and serious student—until he becomes entangled with cynical, affable, devious Damon Flood, a fellow student with some sort of secret agenda. Damon introduces Raphael to the seductive Isabel, an older woman who comes dangerously close to consuming Raphael utterly—until Raphael perceives his peril, tries to extricate himself by getting aggressively drunk, and winds up the victim of a horrible accident: he loses his leg and his manhood. Later, trying to shake flee of the smothering social-workers whom Raphael regards as little better than parasites, he finds himself in a rooftop apartment in a seedy back-street in Spokane, from where he observes the wretched lives of his neighbors: the alcoholics, petty criminals, obsessives, and welfare defendants he calls the "losers." And, still bedeviled by them himself, Raphael continues to blame the social-workers for perpetuating the entire miserable sequence. He finds a job and becomes friendly with fellow worker Denise, a beautiful woman with a withered arm. Then Flood shown up, pretending amicability but seemingly intent on Raphael's destruction. Yet, gradually, despite himself, Flood begins to identify with the losers and to adopt their lifestyle, falling in with a blustering, second-rate biker gang; and when the gang goes to war with a rival gang, Hood, now packing a pistol, self-destructs. Only then does Raphael, rehabilitated at last, commit himself to Denise and unravel the bizarre impulses behind Flood's need to destroy Raphael. Offbeat, intriguing, sometimes compelling work (though social-workers will probably find some of the opinions expressed here downright offensive). For non-fans of Eddings's fantasies, to which this bears not the slightest resemblance: an unexpected pleasure.

Pub Date: June 1, 1992

ISBN: 0345385209

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992

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THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.

Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

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NINTH HOUSE

With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...

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  • New York Times Bestseller

Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.

Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.

With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019

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