First-rate, refreshingly female protagonists worthy of a multivolume fantasy tale.
A handful of adventurers and warriors may be the heroines needed to champion a land besieged by violence and a steady moral decline in this debut novel and series opener.
Longtime friends Ravage and Patsy satisfy the former’s “penchant for vengeance” by chasing a group of bandits who savagely murdered a family. After narrowly surviving clashes with vicious creatures and phantoms, the two women continue their journey through the land of Sapphiron and stop in Menark, a merchant village, for food and supplies. Mercenaries known as the Scarlet Blades, who need no provocation, assault Ravage and Patsy, but powerful female warrior Akella comes to their aid and defeats the men in combat. Akella, one of the (not quite human) Surangi race, is accompanied by her sister Crystal and friend Melody. They plan to reunite with some Surangi in the city of Leesa, but Akella heads off on her own. While she confronts—often aggressively—unsavory men who victimize people (or wolf cubs used as bait for capturing wolves), Ravage and Patsy help the inexplicably disappearing townsfolk of Sigwood. But trouble’s on the way: Scarlet Blades leader Baron Nade, assuming formidable Akella’s a witch, sends sorceress Matearla to hunt down the heroines. Forrester’s fantasy story is dominated by laudable female characters, making it easy to forget that the villains are primarily male—and generally atrocious. Ravage and Patsy are admirable, fearlessly facing beasts in others’ defense, while Akella’s valiance may be questionable: is striking down a man who’s already surrendered, for example, an unnecessarily brutal act? The author excels at describing otherworldly beings (the six-eyed, black-beaked, saliva-dripping tohern), complemented by Isailovic’s crisp, detailed illustrations (one of them stars a wide-mouthed banshee). Not all men are evil, but the standout among the baddies is Matearla, who lists murder “in the top three” of her “favorite activities.” Characters introduced late have little chance for development, but it’s clear, especially with someone’s divine encounter, that Forrester’s priming readers for subsequent installments.
First-rate, refreshingly female protagonists worthy of a multivolume fantasy tale.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5454-5283-7
Page Count: 376
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2017
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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