Intriguing and fun, the mystery unfolds like a socially conscious tour through a cabinet of curiosities.
Cheney follows her debut (The Golden City, 2013) with a killer sequel filled with magical sea people, both living and dead.
Police consultant Duilio Ferreira is not surprised when his brother comes to him for help finding a missing girl instead of going straight to the police. In the Golden City, a richly drawn version of 1900s Lisbon in which the reigning prince has banished magical creatures, nonhumans have to keep a low profile. Like the brothers, the girl is a selkie: a seal person with an alluring scent and irresistible charm. When she turns up dead, Duilio and his police officer cousin, Joaquim, deduce that her killer has skinned her alive to harness the magical qualities of her pelt—and she’s not his only victim. It’s a clever spin on the police procedural trope of a predator who targets illegal immigrants, prostitutes or other women society neglects. And as the medical examiners get a good look at the unusual bodies that crop up, so do the readers through Cheney’s detailed descriptions of scales and tails in varying stages of decay. A medical journal called The Seat of Magic may shed light on the killer’s motive if Duilio and his crew can track him down without drawing attention to themselves, and an underground network of sympathizers who leak information to Duilio at great personal risk help underscore the growing unrest within the city that may be explored in future books. Meanwhile, the private detective turns up the heat with Oriana Paredes, the former spy for the sereia (or siren people), who's masquerading as a handmaiden after being left for dead. Though she hates hiding her gills beneath a high collar, Oriana hopes to make Duilio her mate. Oriana is no wallflower: Sereia women court the men, not the other way around. Readers may want to bookmark the page where she shows Duilio her dorsal stripe.
Intriguing and fun, the mystery unfolds like a socially conscious tour through a cabinet of curiosities.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-451-41776-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: ROC/Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
When the warrior Prince Riven of Kardeth decided to attack Pelucir, the ancient mage Atrix Wolfe pleaded in vain with the prince to desist. So the mage wrought a mighty spell to create a murderous, irresistible Hunter that slew Pelucir's king and drove the forces of Kardeth from the field. Twenty years later, Prince Talis of Pelucir is studying magic in Chaumenard at the behest of his brother, King Burne, when he discovers a strange book of magic spells. Soon after, Burne recalls Talis, who takes up residence in the castle's ghost-ridden keep, where the spells from his book go disastrously wrong. Meanwhile, a sad, disregarded mute girl, Saro, labors in the castle's scullery as a pot-washer. When she's ordered to carry meals to Talis, he notices herand she starts to recover her awareness. Then the Queen of the Wood abducts Talis; though she shows him every courtesy, he is forced to wander in the human world as a ghost. Atrix Wolfe is drawn to the scene when the dreaded Hunter reappears. Saro, meanwhile, begins to read Talis's book of spells. Atrix, who thought the Hunter was his own creation, can't understand why he is unable to uncreate ituntil he confronts the Queen of the Wood and learns that, in fashioning the Hunter, Atrix accidentally ensorcelled both the queen's consort and her daughter. The consort, maddened and twisted by Atrix's spell, became the Hunter; the daughter lost her memory and her magic and became Saro. Intriguing, at least initially, and delicately wrought. But like the similarly charming The Cygnet and the Firebird, (1993), desperately short of plot even at this modest length.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-441-00211-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
Twenty-two new variations ranging—as the title promises—from hard sf to the supernatural, and sometimes successfully blending them. Outstanding examples of the latter include Karen Joy Fowler's long story about voodoo and drugs, Michael Bishop's extended parable exploring apartheid and physics, and Ursula K. LeGuin's tale of space habitat refugees who hallucinate the ruined Earth they've fled. The finest entry of all is Marcos Donnelly's ``Tracking the Random Variable''—a sparkling, witty study of statistics, obsession, and infidelity. Also, interestingly, two translations appear, one from French (descent into madness) and one from German (resurrection). While more variable in quality, the remainder should provide sufficient scope—ecological parables, ghosts, sculpture, helpful aliens, psychic powers, witches, mathematical puzzles, werebeasts, and more—to tempt even readers turned off by the bland, dull, writers'-workshop uniformity so characteristic of short stories in recent years.
Pub Date: June 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-385-41801-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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