Ambitious but not entirely successful, with entertaining moments and promise for more.
In the latest from Bell (Spireseeker, 2013), a dragon scientist and a human witch try to survive political machinations on two separate but related worlds.
In the prologue, an unnamed, four-dimensional being relates how one of its children accidentally split a three-dimensional space into two separate worlds (i.e., planes or dimensions). Now this being tries to help the creatures reconnect their worlds. These two separate worlds parallel each other—which explains why the book opens with two nearly identical maps—but are slightly different. On the human world of Teirrah, a young orphan named Cor wants to discover the mystery of her parents’ murder; her only real clue is a strange tattoo. On her search, she faces prejudice as a woman, especially in the university she sneaks into for research: “WOMEN, CATS, AND WEAPONS STRICTLY PROHIBITED,” a sign declares. On top of all that, there’s political upheaval, as the Seastate seeks some measure of freedom from the Unified Government and its oppressive rules, with some secessionists willing to commit violent revolution. On the dragon world of Arev, Emperor Zee faces a shadowy challenger wishing to unseat her—a conspiracy connected to how Zee herself claimed the throne. Meanwhile, a young dragon studying a potentially medicinal (or narcotic) plant gets forcibly recruited by the emperor and her military. Can such disparate forces heal the rift between these two worlds? There are some interesting elements and episodes in this book, such as Cor’s escaping the university library by accusing another person of being a woman, and the curious dragon society, where the emperor has analysts and biologists at her command. Bell writes clearly and presents some uncommon elements—artistic dragons, a vegetarian heroine, etc.—but the book introduces so many characters in both worlds that few engage the reader as fully as they could. Perhaps the second volume—this being the first in a planned series—will help narrow the focus and deepen reader engagement.
Ambitious but not entirely successful, with entertaining moments and promise for more.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9896992-7-3
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Atthis Arts, LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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