A sword-and-sorcery novel as cerebral as it is pulpy.
In Edwards’ fantasy novel, the first in a series, two friends on a rescue mission find themselves in the midst of a magic war.
Ranvir, a dream magician–in-training–turned–itinerant rogue, and his friend Broga, an exile from a scattered nation, are searching for Broga’s half sister, Ovandu, whom they believe has been sold into slavery. With the help of a magical tracking beast, the travelers follow Ovandu’s trail to the remote desert city of Kanavar, perched on either side of a massive gorge: “The absurd size of it alone—up, down, across—dizzied me. It was like an upside-down mountain range, replete with vast fissures, unlikely outcroppings and strange, eroded rock forms. The bottom was lost in an all-consuming black.” They manage to bluff their way through the gates disguised as a famous wizard and his slave. There they find a city split between two rival factions; both employ powerful magicians to help them seize control of the whole. Ranvir and Broga want no part of a civil war. They want only to find Ovandu and escape before anyone realizes they aren’t who they say they are. They can’t avoid the messy conflict, however, especially when it becomes apparent that one side is attempting to bring to life and enslave the massive statue of the city’s legendary god. Even worse, when they finally find Broga’s half sister, they learn that the Ovandu before them is not the Ovandu they once knew. In addition to the novel, the book contains the short story “Helldriver Alley” by Edwards and James Palmer. The tale follows Ranvir and Broga on an earlier adventure in which they and their comrades investigate a mysterious plague and make a discovery that feels outside of time and space.
Both novel and short story are sword-and-sorcery tales turned up to 10 with a dash of verbose Lovecraft-ian weirdness to give the story some extra darkness. Edwards isn’t afraid of alienating the reader with his worldbuilding. In fact, it seems to be the greatest source of his authorial joy, like here where Ranvir contrasts the desert with the rainforests of his homeland: “To my ears, the desert stillness was a hollow and stultifying roar. Nature in its fullness meant the lively whistle and flutter of Ixzahl. The high tsee-tsee of yellow skógard in flight. Noisy woodcreep chatter. Monarch sharps. Insect hum. Pocket-sized skipti flitting from branch to branch.” The fast-talking Ranvir is a fun protagonist, and his complicated relationship with the brooding, vengeance-fueled Broga provides a necessary emotional heart to the novel. The well-crafted prose does make the reader work, and the plot moves slowly under the weight of its own backstory. The result is something like if J.R.R. Tolkien had written a Conan the Cimmerian novel. It likely won’t appeal to the average fantasy fan, but there is surely an audience for whom this is the perfect combination of serious and sensational. For those lucky fans, more volumes will follow.
A sword-and-sorcery novel as cerebral as it is pulpy.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-30463-2
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Imperiad Entertainment
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
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
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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