Gleefully iconoclastic. For that dwindling demographic with a sense of humor about religion, Maeve’s profane skewering of...
Third in Cunningham’s irreverent chronicle of Mary Magdalen (Magdalen Rising, 2007, etc.).
Maeve (aka the Healer Woman, aka Mary of Magdala) is back, as unapologetically lusty and smart-mouthed as ever. This installment considers the aftermath of Mary’s marriage to Jesus. Christ is always with her, but in less corporeal form. Newly resurrected, he’s left a motley crew behind to cobble together Christianity: pregnant Maeve, fractious Apostles, mother-in-law Miriam and friends Martha, Mary of Bethany and Lazarus. Knowing that Peter and James are scheming to appropriate Jesus’ offspring, Maeve flees Jerusalem for her sacred bordello/Temple of Isis in Magdala, Galilee. After giving birth to a girl, Sarah, with golden eyes identical to her father’s, Maeve heads for Celtic territory, Galatia, where she hides out in a mountain shack with baby Sarah and the endearingly loopy Miriam, who hears angel voices and croons litanies to herself. Androgynous Sarah does not welcome puberty. Itinerant, self-appointed Apostle Paul, battered by stoning, is deposited on Maeve’s doorstep, and she administers her healing touch, which includes a brief hook-up with the puritanical future saint. When he orders the Galatian women to be silent and quashes a snake-worshiping fest honoring fertility goddess Brigit, Paul triggers a major brouhaha. Sarah embarks on the trail of her absent-though-omnipresent father, and Maeve follows, too late: The Apostles, fooled by Sarah’s male attire, tried to circumcise her, and now she’s gone to sea. Maeve, sought after by sailors for her ability to manipulate the wind, traverses the Mediterranean in fruitless pursuit. Then, with Miriam, Maeve journeys to Ephesus, shrine of huntress-deity Artemis, the logical place for a band of neo-Amazon pirates led by Sarah to wash up. In Ephesus, Miriam prepares for her Assumption; Paul once again sets precedents for Church-sanctioned sexism; and 50-something Maeve takes a lover—John the Evangelist.
Gleefully iconoclastic. For that dwindling demographic with a sense of humor about religion, Maeve’s profane skewering of the all-too-human foibles of the Church fathers is a hoot.Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9798828-7-6
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Monkfish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
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
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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