by J. William Whitaker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 22, 2017
A sharp historical tableau of early-20th-century France that is undermined by uneven writing.
A debut historical novel chronicles the lives of four young Parisians living under the specter of potential war.
In 1905, Robert d’Avillard is studying civil engineering in Paris at the Ecole Polytechnique and is part of a spirited young group of student intellectuals who gather regularly to discuss political currents. The topic of the day is the alarming aggressiveness of Germany and its encouragement of an independence movement in Morocco. Robert is inspired by the patriotic commitment of a soldier, Col. Ferdinand Foch, who implores him to join the military, which will desperately need talented engineers to fortify its infrastructure in advance of an increasingly inevitable German invasion. Meanwhile, Robert falls in love with Sarah Morozovski, a student of law and political philosophy, who is fiercely antagonistic to the general threat of militarism and sympathetic with socialist causes. But the two are pulled apart just as their romance blooms, when Robert joins the corps of army engineers and Sarah accepts a position working for a journalistic publication in Berlin. In her absence, Robert begins a new relationship with Marie Bonneau, a young musician, but even as their courtship hurtles toward eventual matrimony, he never forgets Sarah, and those feelings are reignited when they meet again years later in Paris. Robert’s cousin, Thomas, who was a student of philosophy and theology, becomes a priest but also becomes fond of Marie just as Sarah re-enters the scene. While the book follows the entangled romantic complications of the four friends, the backbone of the story is really the inexorable march toward World War I and the impact it has not only on the novel’s protagonists, but also France and Europe. Whitaker skillfully captures the crisis of impending world war and the national anxiety this created for a whole generation of young French men and women whose lives were permanently altered by its arrival. The author’s knowledge of the era’s geopolitical particulars is beyond reproach. But the tale’s drama is deflated by the wooden, overly genteel prose, especially evident in the dialogue. Consider Robert asking Sarah out to dinner: “If you don’t feel that you need to go home to change, we can go to a place that my family has known for years, which I think you will not only find quite hygienic but also quite special.”
A sharp historical tableau of early-20th-century France that is undermined by uneven writing.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-3140-3
Page Count: 468
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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by Samantha Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2019
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
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After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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