World-building that should attract a new universe of fans.
Volume two of The Pearl, a fantasy saga begun with The Ring of Five Dragons (2001). Lustbader erects a strong armature of myth, magic, technology, and religion to support his unstoppered imaginings. The Ring of Five Dragons, sought herein, may unlock the secrets of the Kundalans’ Great Goddess Minna, which lie in the Storehouse, or perhaps reveal The Pearl itself. Now the canvas sweeps wide, with demons and arch-demons arriving from the Abyss. Three peoples vie for the ring. Enslaved for a century by the technologically superior V’ornn (a fascistic, nomadic, off-world alien race), the spiritual Kundalans find their faith in Minna wavering. They await their savior, the Dar Sala-at, who will be born at both ends of the cosmos. How? Riane, a fatally ill female orphan who is Dar Sala-at, receives through sorcery the being of dead young Annon Ashera, heir to rulership of the V’orrn. Then Annon finds himself in a female body but also loved by Eleana, a Kundalan female. Will this bit of human/humanoid semi-same-sex miscegenation eventually lead the races into a marriage of opposites? With opposites dueling throughout, is unity the pearl? Among the major characters: the twin sisters, Giyan (beautiful, gifted with sorcery) and Bartta (bunched, bitter, corrupt), themselves opposites but priestesses of the Kundalans’ Ramahan religion. Ruling the V’ornns are the mysterious Gyrgon with their scary techno-mages.
World-building that should attract a new universe of fans.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-87236-4
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
On a world unsubtly named Chiaroscuro, Good has finally extinguished Evil; those few unregenerate rascals who refuse to see the light have their attitudes permanently improved by Mizzamir, the Good Elf Wizard. Unfortunately, the world that results is not only boringly aseptic but dangerously out of kilter. An endless summer refuses to give way to fall. Daylight encroaches upon the skies of night. Carnivores, unable to hunt, sit forlornly in or under the trees—indeed, in a month or two good/light will totally abolish dark/evil, rendering life itself impossible. So Kaylana, the last surviving Druid mage, must attempt to restore the balance. She recruits a band of lovable rogues: Sam the assassin, Arcie the thief, Valeriana the cannibal sorceress, Blackmail, a mysterious knight who neither eats, sleeps, nor speaks, and Robin, the timorous centaur minstrel. Their task will be to recover the six segments of the Spectrum Key—each protected by a magical Test— and, after braving the Labyrinth, reinstate the evil DarkGate in the world, thus restoring the vital equilibrium. Not only must Kaylana's company avoid the lethal attentions of Sir Fenwick and his Verdant Company, they also have a traitor in their midst to contend with. A frothy and ingenious debut, with an agreeable, mildly humorous streak, though unsuspenseful and too long by half; should prove especially popular with the teenage fantasy-gamer crowd.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-85789-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
A choppy road-novel examining the friendship between two women from different cultures, by the author of Flower Shadows (1991). Farish's tale concerns Laurel, the daughter of an Air Force colonel and an absentee mother who dreams of flying. Through a convoluted series of events (car accident, the Gulf War), she ends up driving to Lowell, Mass., with a Cambodian refugee named Chanty and her infant son. The two women are said to develop a close relationship along the way, but it's not a very convincing one, since Laurel generally, more than anything, seems surly and irritated with her traveling companion. The more interesting character here is Chanty, who is half fleeing from and half running to a violent Cambodian man, but the third-person narrative focuses on Laurel, letting Chanty be seen through her eyes as an enigma. Carefully crafted parallels are frequently worked into the story (the Pol Pot regime and the Gulf War; Laurel's feeling of having been abandoned by her mother and Chanty's offhand relationship with her son), but they lurk behind individually weak scenes that, in turn, are rendered in prose that at first seems appealingly disjointed and minimalist but over the long haul begins to grate. At one point, when Chanty enters a military recruiting office, the recruiter cannot ``move his gaze from her thigh and the net shirt she wore over skin which he could see when the bomber jacket fell open.'' Here, as throughout the story, a very, very great deal is provided about the very close up, while the background—and the depth—are left thin. This YA author's second adult effort is not especially successful, but at least the novel—to its credit—fails for intriguing reasons.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-883642-15-9
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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