Though the book is vastly overelaborate, the steady pace and intricately fascinating details are relentlessly gripping; fans...
Second part of Islington’s doorstopper epic fantasy trilogy (The Shadow of What Was Lost, 2016), set in a world of the Gifted, whose magic lies in being able to tap into their own life force, and the Augurs, who wield a higher-order magic.
Islington supplies a "refresher" of the events of Book 1 that isn’t as helpful as you might suppose for reasons that will soon become clear. The laws that kept the Augurs and the Gifted constrained have been changed to allow them to defend Andarra against mysterious invaders. Three 16-year-olds who became friends at a school for the Gifted, Davian, Wirr, and Asha, now face different futures. Davian must learn to control his Augur powers and determine why the Boundary, put in place many years ago to keep out an invader called Aarkein Devaed, is weakening. Wirr, who, following his father’s death, is now Prince Torin the Northwarden, suspects that the story his father told him was false and must also deal with his interfering mother. By means of treachery, Asha’s Gifted powers have been suppressed, turning her into a Shadow; determined to find out how and why, she may discover more than she bargained for. Their friend Caeden has learned he’s an immortal; worse, he was once Aarkein Devaed but could not bear the crushing guilt and deleted his memories. Now he finds he needs them back; but is he really as evil as everybody says and he himself believes? With the narrative lacking the clear theme usually found in epic fantasy, the particulars assume critical importance; without them readers will be unable to decipher such magnificently gnomic passages as: "Andrael’s ridiculous weapon did its job and took my Reserve, so the Siphon is now bonded to Ashalia rather than me. If you want to seal the ilshara, she will need to find the final Tributary. The one that you set aside for Gassandrid, until he began to suspect and split himself."
Though the book is vastly overelaborate, the steady pace and intricately fascinating details are relentlessly gripping; fans of the first volume won’t be disappointed.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-27411-1
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fifteen tales, including one unpublished entry, from 198494, by fantasist Goldstein (Summer King, Winter Fool, p. 349, etc.). One group of stories draw upon the author's Jewish heritage: a family ghost from the Holocaust; Elijah at a Passover seder; a Hansel and Gretel variant; and—the unpublished yarn—a real-life 17th-century would-be messiah's puzzling self-destruction. A second group are set in the imaginary, oddly elusive country of Amaz, where magic works and news is circulated through packs of fortune- telling cards. Goldstein also includes the story prototype of her novel Tourists. The remainder evince somewhat more varied themes and range from photographs that predict the future, Cinderella's marriage, Demeter and Persephone, aliens intent on destroying the world, and a tribe of mysterious, magical travelers, to Sir Walter Raleigh's search for El Dorado, artistic perceptions, and a young woman transcending her regimented, push-button existence. The backdrops never appear vivid or distinctive enough to enable the reader to distinguish among the often adroit plot twists and carefully limned characters; the upshot is an agreeable but blandly amorphous blur.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85790-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
The first of a new series spun off from Stasheff's paperback Warlock yarns (A Wizard in Absentia, 1993, etc.). Like his Warlock father, Rod Gallowglass, Magnus d'Armand has wizardly powers (actually various ESP, telepathic, and telekinetic abilities) and has dedicated himself to overthrowing oppressive totalitarian regimes throughout the galaxy. His secret ally is Herkimer, his intelligent computer-cum-spaceship. On planet Petrarch, the most advanced culture has been frozen at a Renaissance level ever since the revolutionary Earth interstellar government cut off technological aid. Also at work on Petrarch, posing as gypsies, is a team from AEGIS, an Earth-funded organization of misguided reformers whose interference usually causes more harm than good. Magnus, taking the guise of mercenary soldier, befriends Gianni, the son of a merchant from the prosperous island city of Pirogia. Gianni, protected and encouraged by Magnus, persuades the reluctant Pirogia merchants to prepare for war against the arrogant feudal lords of the mainland. The lords, it turns out, are supported not by AEGIS but by the interstellar Lurgan Company, which is making staggering profits exporting Petrarchian gemstones. Ingenuous head-bashing for the most part: a natural mass market title clearly out of its league in hardcover format.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-85695-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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