Readers will be caught up by the sweeping tale, which is more successful than many similar attempts at bringing a...
British historian Castor chooses a well-rehearsed period of history to re-examine what made the Tudor monarch tick from a new perspective.
The tale of Henry VIII’s meteoric rise to supreme power is told in the first person, present tense, providing a credible analysis of Henry’s character as it evolved from innocent child to the charismatic brutal warrior that stares out from Holbein’s portrait. Traumatized by the death of his mother in childbirth and haunted by a recurring vision of a deathly boy, the young Hal fills his life with manly pursuits, fighting, jousting and gambling. When his elder brother, Arthur, unexpectedly dies, Hal realizes that a prophecy has been fulfilled, and he now has a straight line to the throne. However his pleasure at the unexpected succession is short-lived. The difficulties of producing a royal heir, together with the thwarting of his overweening military ambition against the French by Spanish Catherine’s family and his own more cautious advisers cause Henry to become increasingly cynical and desperate. His final decline into a paranoid, apoplectic tyrant is portrayed in a sequence of quasi-cinematic tableaux that punctuate the 30-year span of his reign and clarify the complex historical narrative. The unabashedly modern dialogue is at times jarring, but minor anachronisms are easy to forgive in this ambitious effort.
Readers will be caught up by the sweeping tale, which is more successful than many similar attempts at bringing a fascinating historical character and period to life. (Historical fiction. 13 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7418-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
A dystopian world that is all too real and that has much to say about our own.
In an apocalyptic future Canada, Indigenous people have been forced to live on the run to avoid capture by the Recruiters, government military agents who kidnap Indians and confine them to facilities called “schools.”
Orphan Frenchie (Métis) is rescued from the Recruiters by Miigwans (Anishnaabe) along with a small band of other Indians from different nations, most young and each with a tragic story. Miigwans leads the group north to find others, holding on to the belief of safety in numbers. Five years later, Frenchie is now 16, and the bonded travelers have protected one another, strengthened by their loyalty and will to persevere as a people. They must stay forever on alert, just a breath away from capture by the Recruiters or by other Indians who act as their agents. Miigwans reveals that the government has been kidnapping Indians to extract their bone marrow, scientists believing that the key to restoring dreaming to white people is found within their DNA. Frenchie later learns that the truth is even more horrifying. The landscape of North America has been completely altered by climate change, rising oceans having eliminated coastlines and the Great Lakes having been destroyed by pollution and busted oil pipelines. Though the presence of the women in the story is downplayed, Miigwans is a true hero; in him Dimaline creates a character of tremendous emotional depth and tenderness, connecting readers with the complexity and compassion of Indigenous people.
A dystopian world that is all too real and that has much to say about our own. (Science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77086-486-3
Page Count: 180
Publisher: DCB
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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