Dragon lovers are the best audience for this fantasy novel with well-established themes.
In this fantasy novel, a young dragon fails an important test but secretly tags along on a mission, only to be captured by humans.
In Avonoa, all young dragons undergo testing in the Krusible, where they must remain silent from sunup to sundown, no matter how the adult dragons provoke them. For young Dak, holding his tongue is a particular challenge; most dragons pass by their second attempt, but Dak has just failed for the fourth time. He has one last chance to test again—in 15 moons, while practicing with dragons who enjoy tormenting him. When Dak’s friends are sent on an intriguing mission to a dragon community in the desert, Dak decides to follow them secretly and throw in his lot with the new group. The mission comes under violent attack, however, and while Dak is able to rescue one friend, others die and one goes missing. Searching for her, Dak is captured by humans; he then faces the very real test of remaining silent (thus hiding dragon intelligence) while being tortured and potentially killed. Fairies, centaurs, banshees, and a prophecy about the one dragon who can unite dragons and humans all play a part. In her debut novel, Collotzi writes a well-paced but familiar novel, with many predictable fantasy elements: the quasi-medieval setting; the young hero—subject of a prophecy—who must be tested; the heroic journey; supernatural helpers; trials, including rescuing a beautiful young female; and so forth. The beginning section reads like many a YA novel in which upperclassmen bully the younger kids and grown-ups just don’t understand. Some lore is offered, most notably the magic (or “majik”) Five Swords of Avonoa. More interesting is the dragon’s-eye perspective on humanity: Dak “could smell the stink of the fluids draining from human skin; ‘sweat,’ they called it, or so he’d heard. Humans were filthy.” One human, the prince’s half sister Anna, has sympathy for dragons; the story seems to call for rapprochement, but that’s unresolved, perhaps to leave room for sequels.
Dragon lovers are the best audience for this fantasy novel with well-established themes.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499758535
Page Count: 300
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2014
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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