An opera of the four elements, moody and melodious.
Sequel to Haydon’s Rhapsody Trilogy fantasy/romance, begun impressively with Rhapsody: Child of Blood (1999). In Serendair, the ex-whore and harpist Rhapsody, who has Namer magic, gets revirginated, falls in with the assassin Achmed the Snake and his jolly giant sidekick and Sergeant-Major, Grunthor. She gains a fiery sword to help her fight the F’dor, who intend to wake the Primal Wyrm from the world core and level all with fire. In Prophecy: Child of Earth (2000), they recklessly rescue the endangered Sleeping Child from the F’dor while Rhapsody at last unites with her beloved Ashe. The Island of Serendair has been lost beneath the sea for over a thousand years as new plots interweave Lirin’s Lady Cymrian (Rhapsody) and Ashe Lord Cymrian with Esten, dark Mistress of the Ravens Guild of foundry artisans, and with Achmed, whose Bolgs now rebuild Castle Canrif of Ylorc, and with Grunthor. The half-human Queen Rhapsody and her Lord Cymrian care for the Navarre orphans—Gwydion, who assumes his late father’s title, and Gwydion’s young sister Melisande. Lirin and Ylorc are loosely allied with relentlessly sunbaked Sorbold, ruled by greedy, aged Dowager Empress Leitha, famed as the Gray Assassin and mother of her poisonous Crown Prince Vyshla, though her end nears. The fate of the world depends on the Sleeping Child now in a vault under Ylorc, for her altar imprisons beneath it the F’dor children of fire set on rising to destroy the Earth. Rhapsody herself begs Ashe to impregnate her, though he fears a child will kill Rhapsody, yet when she finally is pregnant she must keep it a secret from the risen demons. The worst happens when her old enemy Michael returns from the dead, casting no shadow but burning villages and sending her to be raped by his ship’s crew.
An opera of the four elements, moody and melodious.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-87884-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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