Fabulously layered mythmaking.
In this debut fantasy, a schoolteacher is thrust into a contest for a medieval throne.
In 1924, Rhissan “Rhiss” Griffith teaches English literature at the Darkton School. Though only 25, he feels that his life has become a joyless slog, except when he and confidant Alistair practice their swordsmanship and archery. One day, Rhiss notices a richly decorated door in the school where it shouldn’t be. Behind it is a librarylike setting where he soon meets someone named Brother Gavrilos. He commiserates with Rhiss on his plight and encourages him to choose a life of difficulty and adventure by entering a second door, opposite the first. Before leaving for the realm of Arrinor, where he’s to help the rightful King win back the Crystal Throne, Rhiss receives magical items, including the Circlet of Araxis and a matching dagger. Once through the portal, he saves a young gryphon from flying creatures called Malmoridai; he names the orphaned creature Aquilea. Soon he encounters the Sovereign’s Men, who are about to harm a mother and daughter. Rhiss dispatches the brigands, then miraculously heals the daughter’s mortal wound. Does some sort of spiritual magic flow through Rhiss? Debut author Ranshaw crafts a literary epic apparently inspired by grand classics such as T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (1958) and the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He sends Rhiss not only to find the King but to master himself spiritually (with the help of a woman named Arian) and make ethical choices in a world savaged by the corrupt Usurper. Ranshaw’s prose is sharp and absorbing, with characters often discussing every facet of a situation before taking action. Major events are preceded by plenty of traveling, but they are worth the wait (“A roiling wave of dense, grey mist advanced swiftly and silently across the Moor from the south, a wave hundreds of feet high”). A scene in which a legendary sword appears is truly breathtaking. Monotheism and gender equality also prove to be engaging themes, which will hopefully reappear in the sequel.
Fabulously layered mythmaking.Pub Date: June 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4602-5763-0
Page Count: 360
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
This is the sort of book that stirs one so deeply that it is almost impossible to attempt to convey the impression it leaves. It is the story of today's Exodus, of America's great trek, as the hordes of dispossessed tenant farmers from the dust bowl turn their hopes to the promised land of California's fertile valleys. The story of one family, with the "hangers-on" that the great heart of extreme poverty sometimes collects, but in that story is symbolized the saga of a movement in which society is before the bar. What an indictment of a system — what an indictment of want and poverty in the land of plenty! There is flash after flash of unforgettable pictures, sharply etched with that restraint and power of pen that singles Steinbeck out from all his contemporaries. There is anger here, but it is a deep and disciplined passion, of a man who speaks out of the mind and heart of his knowledge of a people. One feels in reading that so they must think and feel and speak and live. It is an unresolved picture, a record of history still in the making. Not a book for casual reading. Not a book for unregenerate conservative. But a book for everyone whose social conscience is astir — or who is willing to face facts about a segment of American life which is and which must be recognized. Steinbeck is coming into his own. A new and full length novel from his pen is news. Publishers backing with advertising, promotion aids, posters, etc. Sure to be one of the big books of the Spring. First edition limited to half of advance as of March 1st. One half of dealer's orders to be filled with firsts.
Pub Date: April 14, 1939
ISBN: 0143039431
Page Count: 532
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1939
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