by Elaine Isaak ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2005
Plodding pace and an unduly Byzantine plot, even by genre standards.
Eunuch prince reclaims his family’s usurped throne in this fantasy debut.
Rhys, now called Kattanan, is the last of the Rinvien line. His three brothers and his mother, the Queen of Lochalyn, were murdered by his uncle Thorgir, who seized the crown. Thorgir spared Rhys but ordered him castrated to avoid future succession disputes. Raised in a monastery dedicated to Goddess worship, Kattanan becomes a talented court singer, traded from realm to realm as human collateral. Separated at the court of an emir from his companion and mentor Jordan, Kattanan is brought to Bernholt, domain of corrupt King Gerrod, who has been struck down by a wizard-instigated illness. Kattanan becomes the beloved hairdresser and personal cantor of Gerrod’s daughter, Melisande. Her suitor, a wizard apprentice named Earl Orie, seeks to ingratiate himself at the Bernholt court, but Kattanan intuits that he has ulterior motives. When Melisande goes to Gamel’s Grove to marry Orie, Kattanan follows. There he befriends Fionvar, Orie’s older brother. Expelled by Orie, Kattanan is rescued by Jordan, who proceeds to Bernholt and enlists his nemesis, the Wizard of Nine Stars, to cure King Gerrod. But Gerrod, ensnared by Orie’s machinations, condemns his son Wolfram, who had been regent during his illness. Wolfram flees and goes to the aid of Kattanan, now recognized as the true heir by the Duchess Elyn, ruler of the Rinvien court in exile. Nasty squire Montgomery, an Orie cohort, tortures Jordan, taken prisoner by the usurpers. With wizardly help to deepen his voice, Kattanan rides to battle as King Rhys, deposing Thorgir. He is betrothed to Fionvar’s lover Brianna, who is pregnant and will help perpetuate the fiction of King Rhys’s manhood. Swashbuckling ill suits Kattanan, and Melisande, now pregnant by Orie, still misses her former singer. But what if his castration were just another wizard’s device?
Plodding pace and an unduly Byzantine plot, even by genre standards.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-078253-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Eos/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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by Elaine Isaak
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2015
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.
Second part of an alien-contact trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, 2014) from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In the previous book, the inhabitants of Trisolaris, a planet with three suns, discovered that their planet was doomed and that Earth offered a suitable refuge. So, determined to capture Earth and exterminate humanity, the Trisolarans embarked on a 400-year-long interstellar voyage and also sent sophons (enormously sophisticated computers constructed inside the curled-up dimensions of fundamental particles) to spy on humanity and impose an unbreakable block on scientific advance. On Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization formed to help the invaders, despite knowing the inevitable outcome. Humanity’s lone advantage is that Trisolarans are incapable of lying or dissimulation and so cannot understand deceit or subterfuge. This time, with the Trisolarans a few years into their voyage, physicist Ye Wenjie (whose reminiscences drove much of the action in the last book) visits astronomer-turned-sociologist Luo Ji, urging him to develop her ideas on cosmic sociology. The Planetary Defense Council, meanwhile, in order to combat the powerful escapist movement (they want to build starships and flee so that at least some humans will survive), announces the Wallfacer Project. Four selected individuals will be accorded the power to command any resource in order to develop plans to defend Earth, while the details will remain hidden in the thoughts of each Wallfacer, where even the sophons can't reach. To combat this, the ETO creates Wallbreakers, dedicated to deducing and thwarting the plans of the Wallfacers. The chosen Wallfacers are soldier Frederick Tyler, diplomat Manuel Rey Diaz, neuroscientist Bill Hines, and—Luo Ji. Luo has no idea why he was chosen, but, nonetheless, the Trisolarans seem determined to kill him. The plot’s development centers on Liu’s dark and rather gloomy but highly persuasive philosophy, with dazzling ideas and an unsettling, nonlinear, almost nonnarrative structure that demands patience but offers huge rewards.
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen
BOOK REVIEW
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Blake Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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by Blake Crouch
BOOK REVIEW
by Blake Crouch
BOOK REVIEW
by Blake Crouch
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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