This exceedingly intricate fantasy will delight seasoned genre fans.
Mortals of various races engage in battle under the direction of deities in this fantasy series opener.
In the Five Kingdoms, near the Wasted Land, is the Stronghold. It’s the home of the Scorpion Men, who are humanoid from the chest up and arachnid below. The Immortal patron of the Scorpion Men, Blademon, has chosen Vardak as his apprentice. After much training and the gift of esoteric knowledge (via their mental bond), Blademon tasks Vardak with the mission of retrieving the Moon’s Eye relic. Vardak must accompany and protect Janna, the Fire Maiden Flariel’s human daughter, on this quest. Only the Moon’s Eye can counter the power of the Shalin Stone, already in the possession of a mad wizard who raises a Murkor army to threaten the Kingdoms. Further, the wizard Shan’tar plans to release the Nameless, a dread enemy of the Immortals, whom they imprisoned. To quicken his goal, Shan’tar summons the Soulless, magical thralls of the Nameless able to bend the Kingdoms to their will. Meanwhile, Tavesin Drondes, an apprentice mage in the Shining Tower, has found himself able to enter the Aetherium, a magical realm created by the Immortal Solsticia and used as a medium of transport by the Soulless. Can heroic forces act in time to save the Kingdoms? Calvin’s engaging epic tale opens with a dense and emotionally complex narrative. While laying the foundation for multiple novels, she offers crisp, nuanced characterizations, like that of Dranamir, the Soulless who brings Princess Tamarin Serales, murderer of her own parents, to heel. Nonhuman races, like the reptilian Drakkon, invigorate the plot, as do the enigmatic and beautiful Murkor, who never remove their hoods for strangers. Vardak, who speaks little and bristles at being a pawn of the Immortals, is a protagonist with great potential, especially as spurred on by the naïve Janna, whose ultimate decision regarding the Moon’s Eye shocks him. The author rewards patient action fans when the city of Jennavere falls with the aid of Scherok, a sea serpent. Many intriguing characters await the chance to grow in the next installments.
This exceedingly intricate fantasy will delight seasoned genre fans. (map)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73792-040-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2022
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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