Overall, a satisfying close to a long but worthy yarn.
The Red Queen is off her head—and heads, it seems, will roll in this closing installment of Johansen’s Tearling trilogy.
The first volume of the Tearling triad, Queen of the Tearling (2014), struggled under the weight of its establishing requirements: Johansen had to build and populate a world, then wind her heroine up and get her going. The second, The Invasion of the Tearling (2015), propelled Kelsea to a place of power—and deservedly, since she had plenty of chops to lead her people against a constellation of bad guys from Mortmesne. This last volume finds Kelsea in a position of queen sacrifice, to borrow a chess metaphor: she’s turned herself over to the foe and is now in the Red Queen’s slammer, where a jailer patiently instructs her, “Women shouldn’t curse,” to which her reply is, “Get fucked.” That’s noblesse oblige, indeed. But, the world of the Tear being a place where all kinds of magick gets tossed about with abandon, things have a habit of going topsy-turvy all of a sudden; Kelsea finds herself sprung, sapphires back in hand, the Red Queen tugging at her “in an iron grip of terror”—a good time, one might say, to get some negotiating in. Will peace prevail? Who knows? Though Johansen leaves herself a little wiggle room to turn her trilogy into an ongoing franchise, Silmarillion-like, the end gets all liony, witchy, and wardroby—and, the most overworked plot trick of all, would seem to turn on a dream, or perhaps even a dream within a dream, requiring more than a little disbelief-suspension. Still, the writing is smart and tinged with a kind of rueful, bookish philosophizing throughout (“Religion always rode on the back of turmoil, like a jockey”), a touch above a lot of sword-and-sorcery stuff—but still very much bound up in the conventions of that genre.
Overall, a satisfying close to a long but worthy yarn.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-229042-7
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.
This doorstopper epic fantasy and trilogy opener was originally self-published in 2014.
The details that give this ingeniously plotted yarn its backbone emerge gradually—and are not always entirely clear. Twenty years ago, a war swept away and annihilated the tyrannical Augurs when their formidable magic inexplicably faltered. Their servants, the Gifted, whose lesser magic derives from Essence (Islington has an irritating habit of capitalizing things), were forcibly constrained to obey the Four Tenets, meaning they can no longer use their magic to cause harm even in self-defense. At a school-cum-sanctuary-cum-prison for the Gifted, three 16-year-old friends, Davian, Wirr, and Asha, face their final tests. Though an excellent student, Davian cannot use Essence and faces a cruel exile. He decides to abscond. Wirr believes Davian’s an Augur whose higher-order magic blocks his ability to channel Essence, and he insists on joining him. Ilseth Tenvar, a seemingly sympathetic Elder, gives Davian a mysterious magic box to guide his progress. The next morning Asha wakes to a nightmare of her own. On the road Davian encounters the strange, scarred Gifted Taeris Sarr, who three years ago saved his life (Davian doesn’t remember the incident) and supposedly was executed for his pains. In the far north an ancient evil stirs, while in a related development, Caeden wakes in a forest to find himself covered in blood and with no memory of anything. So, in time-honored fashion, nobody is what they seem to be, everybody has a secret agenda, and the key players all lack pivotal memories. And while there’s nothing much new here, Islington’s natural storytelling ability provides incessant plot twists and maintains a relentless pace. The characters have well-rounded personalities and don’t make decisions or errors merely to advance the plot, even if they all sound and act the same youngish age.
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27409-8
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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