A richly rewarding, action-packed excursion into the classic pulp era, delivering a combination of eldritch villains and...
Two novellas set in the world of the 2012 Nightscape movie.
Both tales in this dual-novella package are set in a supernaturally tinged world that’s provided the basis for a 2012 feature film (written, produced, and directed by Edwards), comic books, short stories, novels, and even an album. However, these novellas aren’t merely for fans, as they’re both completely accessible as action-adventure tales, squarely in the tradition of the pulps. The Thousand-Eyed Fear by Derrick Ferguson (Search for the Beast, 2016, etc.) and Edwards (Nightscape: Cynopolis, 2015, etc.) is the more successful of the two; it centers on the unlikely partnership between Capt. William Davenport of the British Third Army, a hardheaded Anglican realist, and the Lost Boys, a group of teenage soldiers who are self-professed masters of the arcane. It’s 1917, and their goal is to find and destroy a diabolical new weapon that the Germans are developing to bring the war to a cataclysmic end. The second story, The Q for Damnation, by debut author Arlen M. Todd, is set on the eve of World War II, with the Nazis on the brink of a breakthrough in dark magic—this time, in the form of a classic painting with supernatural potential. Opposing them is the young Frenchwoman Monteau, who’s depicted as a fascinating blend of resistance fighter and Batman-like superhero. As in its predecessor, the narrative in this tale relies heavily on breakneck pacing and a rapid-fire succession of plot twists. In both novellas, the authors offer plenty of engaging examples of full-throated pastiche, including moments of high-fantasy overwriting that might have had Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, grinning with pride: “All of his brother monks had degenerated into bestial dreamshapes. They stirred about, driven by blind instinct or vestigial habit, pursuing the swimmy visions in their heads.”
A richly rewarding, action-packed excursion into the classic pulp era, delivering a combination of eldritch villains and overmatched but valiant heroes.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-78737-3
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Imperiad Entertainment
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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