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
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
Reasonably involving while you’re reading it but ultimately disappointing and incomplete feeling.
A feud between two powerful witch families heats up, thanks to two pairs of star-crossed lovers and an ambitious middle son, in this stand-alone by the author of The Atlas Six (2022).
In New York City, Lazar Fedorov, aka Koschei the Deathless, trades in illicit magical items, fantastical creatures, and expensive favors extended to the desperate. His three sons—Dimitri, Roman, and Lev—aid him in his dealings. Meanwhile, Marya Antonova, aka Baba Yaga, and her seven daughters sell high-end beauty products and illegal magical hallucinogens. As Yaga prepares to extend her drug sales to nonmagical buyers and her eldest daughter, Marya, also called Masha, discovers that the Fedorovs are interfering with their business, both sides plot to finish off their rivals. Matters head toward a tragic direction as Masha and Dimitri reignite the embers of their long-ago love, Masha’s youngest sister, Sasha, becomes romantically entangled with Lev, and Roman makes his own violent plans to gain his father’s approval. What appears to be an unholy magical cross between The Godfather and Romeo and Juliet leads to an expected high body count—and that’s only halfway through the book. Since this is a fantasy novel, Blake throws in a twist that initially feels like a shocking swerve, but we’re soon headed in a similar, but potentially even more destructive, direction. Several characters exhibit deep and interesting emotional growth (some based on a clever use of magic drawn straight from the Russian fairy tales the book references), but others are never fully fleshed out. In addition, the plot unfortunately coalesces predictably (and not nearly as intricately as the scheming characters, and probably the author, imagine it does), and the denouement seems less inevitably tragic than sadly pointless. Meanwhile, many opportunities for intriguing worldbuilding (how magic works, how witches govern themselves to hide their magic from nonwitches, where magical creatures come from, what non–New York witch societies are like) are never picked up.
Reasonably involving while you’re reading it but ultimately disappointing and incomplete feeling.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-25-088485-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
