A wild fantasy romp propelled by humor, horror, and heart.
A spider princess and her crew of misfits tangle with dark gods and the undead in this fantasy.
Spider Princess and reluctant bride-to-be Adrianna Morticia is about to wed dragon Prince Richard Valkanna, a long-arranged marriage (conducted by a lively corpse) that will join the two royal households after generations of enmity. The union will prevent a war and restore the spiders’ claim to their castle. Adrianna, whose shifts between spider and human form may make arachnophobes blanch, would much rather be back with her cadre of fellow adventurers (Ebbo, a diminutive “magick”-addicted islander; Clayton, a fashion-conscious golem; and Asakusa, a human in thrall to the demonic “Ways of the Dead” and in love with the princess). They fulfill missions for a powerful druid dwarf to benefit the multispecies City of S’kar-Vozi. Bent on preventing the wedding, Asakusa establishes a quick route to the remote spider castle using “Gates” to the paths where the dead of all faiths trudge and toil. Amid the chaos that Asakusa causes at the castle, Adrianna escapes, returning to her old life. She discovers that her three cohorts are facing a vampire baron, ravaging skeletons, and a monstrous half-crab, half-squid Kraken, all hell-bent on destroying S’kar-Vozi and adding its inhabitants to the skeleton army. Reminiscent of Terry Pratchett’s brand of dark, comical fantasy, this offbeat novel by SF/fantasy author Mitchell is divided into five tongue-in-cheek sections: “An Engagement of Abominations,” “A Tropic of Skeletons,” “To Snort One’s Soul,” “The Vegan of Vengeance,” and “A Homecoming of Horrors.” Leavened by wicked humor and genuinely moving scenes of reflection (Adrianna, unlike her spider kin, doesn’t suck the life fluids of sentient beings and relies on kindly, unexpectedly complex Clayton to be her moral compass), the tale features easily offended half-orcs, snake god worshippers, and a tiny but fearsome assassin. The story details Adrianna’s attraction to both the untrustworthy dragon prince and diffident Asakusa as well as such deliciously repulsive horrors as Asakusa’s maggoty, body-consuming “Corruption.” The author pays sly homage to fantasy icons like Tolkien (the term halflings is a slur here) and George R.R. Martin (an epic battle waged by the undead). Except for some unnecessary recapping here and there, Mitchell’s massive worldbuilding is a blast from start to finish.
A wild fantasy romp propelled by humor, horror, and heart.Pub Date: July 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64456-152-2
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Indies United Publishing House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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