A creative and highly enjoyable fantasy read.
In Cooper’s series starter in the LitRPG (literary role-playing game) fantasy subgenre, a soldier dies on the battlefield but is renewed as a publican in the Underworld village of Ember Hollow.
While battling enemy knights from the Shadowthorne Empire, Sylas Runewulf of the Aurum Kingdom is felled by his opponent’s blade and dies in combat. He’s then transported to a gate where a message awaits him: “Welcome to the Underworld.” From there, Sylas—his body perfectly healed and clad in simple civilian clothing—is greeted with more messages, first instructing him to go to the village of Ember Hollow, and then informing him that he’s been given the deed to a local pub. Following the prompts, he meets Mira Ravenbane, the apothecary of Ember Hollow, who quickly assumes the role of a guide. With her help, Sylas learns how to access his new life-force magic called Mana Lumens (or “MLus”), gains new skills, including flight, and reopens the pub under a new name. As he adjusts to his new life, Sylas makes various other friends, including a fire spirit named Azor, his flying instructor, Archlumen Octavian Tilbud, and a fiercely protective and loyal cat he names Patches. The afterlife isn’t all fun and games, however: Every morning, Sylas gets a new prompt counting down the days until an unspecified invasion. Cooper’s novel takes readers on an action-packed journey through a cozy, yet appealingly unpredictable, realm; the combination of suspense, humor, and detailed imagery makes the book engaging. The characters are also well developed, and the story’s thorough worldbuilding is enjoyable, in part because it refreshingly pushes back on fantasy genre cliches, such as cultural sexism. Those who are unfamiliar with LitRPG works may find this novel to be a fun introduction to the subgenre, which features interspersed character stats and action prompts reminiscent of classic fantasy-themed RPGs.
A creative and highly enjoyable fantasy read.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781039448391
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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