A densely packed conclusion to an SF/fantasy series of vast ambition and scale.
In this SF/fantasy novel, two brothers from a legendary lineage of heroes must unite with a mythic creature and summon awesome powers to confront a universe-devouring entity.
Carlton concludes the fantasy saga started in The Coming of Schades (2023) with this volume. Nick Emerson is 14 and his younger brother, Frank, is 9—not that one would know from looking at the pair. Nick now has the physiology of an adult man, and telepathic-empath Frank, who appears to be a teenager, has literally absorbed an immortal named Vahl. These are just two of the supernatural events that have befallen the brothers since receiving a revelation from Harry Armstrong, the custodian of their school: The close siblings, who hail from a tragedy-scarred, fatherless family, are actually descendants and avatars of Oemir, a legendary Celtic hero from a lineage of champions spanning the multiverse. It seems that everything, everywhere was initially composed of 13 universes that were once balanced in harmony; now, all but two of these universes have been devoured by the “living dark,” also called firdur, a malevolent force hostile to all life and light that gains power as it spreads its void. A few species of beings, chiefly the sinister “schades,” have allied themselves with the living dark. That leaves a badly diminished line of heroes, in addition to a plethora of creatures once thought to be mythical (including godlike dragons, wyverns, the virtually immortal Sidhe, centaurs, and cyclopses) as the last hope for existence against the threat of the living nothingness. Nick and Frank, due to their shared soul, have the ability to cross the “curtain” between worlds, feel the other’s sensations, and enter their sister universe to rally Sidhe and other inhabitants of a strategically important world called Aderyn against the living dark. Back on Earth, Nick and Frank and their widely scattered associates face up to their destinies as police investigate a deadly attack on Harry (tied to a corrupt pastor caught up in human trafficking).
There are echoes here of Susan Cooper’s fondly remembered Dark Is Rising series of YA novels commenced in 1965, though Carlton’s playbook reflects a more contemporary American sensibility that blends elements of urban fantasy and LGBTQ+ acceptance (Nick is bisexual). The author effectively blends SF elements (DNA double-helixes, quantum physics) with fantastical magic (“Everything, magic, spells, wards, all of it, it’s just harmonics and physics, it’s just the ways of energy and nature, there’s no good or evil inherent in any of it, it’s all about the intention”). Carlton includes quotes and shoutouts to other popular SF and fantasy franchises, including Tolkien’s Middle Earth and the Harry Potter universe, but rarely to the point that this becomes campy or tiresome. The reader ricochets between an elsewhere where a dragon the size of Africa can forge planets and stars and a relatively mundane Earth replete with bullies, police detectives, same-sex boyfriends, and plenty of swearing—it’s a wild ride, especially as the major characters in this expansive cast ensemble weave in and out of their various incarnations.
A densely packed conclusion to an SF/fantasy series of vast ambition and scale.Pub Date: Dec. 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780983292791
Page Count: 640
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2025
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
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
