Despite a worthy plot, a nearly impenetrable, wordy fantasy.
This ambitious but overwritten bit of Tolkien-inspired fiction is sure to frustrate even the most devoted fantasy enthusiast.
The best thing that can be said about Of Staves and Sigmas is that it resembles one of the most innovative fantasy titles ever conceived–Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. In that series, the surly, leprous antihero Thomas is thrust into an alternate universe simply called "the Land," where his earthly impairments are reconfigured as strengths. Verdegast’s hero, like Thomas, is disabled in this world, a schizophrenic whose episodes reduce him to violence and send him through walls, sometimes literally. James Wagner must endure batteries of tests and the scrutiny of doctors flabbergasted by his remarkable state. However, James later learns that his condition is preparation for a journey to Ergos, a brutal realm filled with gladiators, slaves, beasts and monsters where James must fight for his freedom. The plot is compelling enough, and the author has clearly spent time and effort constructing a unique fictional world. But plot is not the problem–that would be the writing. Or more precisely, the overwriting. Verdegast’s prose is an overgrown thicket of thesaurus-busters sure to tire even the most ambitious reader. Take, as one example, this passage: "The next few hours loped by discourteously, a percipience born not only of the angst and haste of their preparative scrambling-about, but of Time’s own unchivalrous penchant for oppugnancy whenever some mortal sought to bend it toward his own convenience." Verdegast reports that the book comes in at just over 270,000 words, and sentences like these suggest that he would do well to cut perhaps half of them. In creating a compelling new world, a fantasy author must not send readers running to the dictionary with every other word.
Despite a worthy plot, a nearly impenetrable, wordy fantasy.Pub Date: March 26, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-5985-8292-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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