A collection of enjoyable and cheerfully unsubtle adventures in the company of an endearing cast of characters.
In this illustrated collection, Blaylock (Beneath London, 2015, etc.) offers readers five stories featuring scientist and adventurer Langdon St. Ives, a character first introduced in 1978 when Blaylock was one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre.
Langdon St. Ives is a scientist, explorer, and cheerfully married family man who continually finds himself embroiled in strange adventures and investigations that transform both Victorian England and more exotic locales into places lavishly beset by all the familiar and beloved trappings of fantastical steampunk. Accompanied by a cast of charming friends and allies, St. Ives faces a series of absurd dangers, often the machinations of a cartoonish nemesis in the mad scientist mold, Ignacio Narbondo. In the first story of the collection, “The Ebb Tide,” Blaylock shows off a flair for spectacular images. A search for a mysterious and powerful device leads St. Ives to Morecambe Bay, where he rides a submersible down through strata of quicksand to a hidden ocean graveyard full of objects and creatures that have sunk through the sands and into the waters below. The five stories in this collection (two new and three already published) treat readers to an amusing excess of genre-pleasing details—the plucky orphan assistant, gemstone-powered madness rays, a hot air balloon, the subterranean lair of an evil genius—and while the descriptions of these details sometimes expand to the point where they hobble the story, they remain a pleasurable entertainment. St. Ives is a very Holmes-ian hero and an enjoyable one, but his supporting cast, including Jack Owlesby, the Watson-like faithful chronicler, often provides the emotional anchor. Unfortunately, the illustrations by Potter are graceless and clunky distractions that look like digital collages of sideshow horrors and costume shop Victoriana.
A collection of enjoyable and cheerfully unsubtle adventures in the company of an endearing cast of characters.Pub Date: July 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59606-782-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable.
The first volume in Carey’s Rampart trilogy is set centuries into a future shaped by war and climate change, where the scant remains of humankind are threatened by genetically modified trees and plants.
Teenager Koli Woodsmith lives in Mythen Rood, a village of about 200 people in a place called Ingland, which has other names such as “Briton and Albion and Yewkay.” He was raised to cultivate, and kill, the wood from the dangerous trees beyond Mythen Rood’s protective walls. Mythen Rood is governed by the Ramparts (made up entirely of members of one family—what a coincidence), who protect the village with ancient, solar-powered tech. After the Waiting, a time in which each child, upon turning 15, must decide their future, Koli takes the Rampart test: He must “awaken” a piece of old tech. After he inevitably fails, he steals a music player which houses a charming “manic pixie dream girl” AI named Monono, who reveals a universe of knowledge. Of course, a little bit of knowledge can threaten entire societies or, in Koli’s case, a village held in thrall to a family with unfettered access to powerful weapons. Koli attempts to use the device to become a Rampart, he becomes their greatest threat, and he’s exiled to the world beyond Mythen Rood. Luckily, the pragmatic Koli has his wits, Monono, and an ally in Ursala, a traveling doctor who strives to usher in a healthy new generation of babies before humanity dies out for good. Koli will need all the help he can get, especially when he’s captured by a fearsome group ruled by a mad messianic figure who claims to have psychic abilities. Narrator Koli’s inquisitive mind and kind heart make him the perfect guide to Carey’s (Someone Like Me, 2018, etc.) immersive, impeccably rendered world, and his speech and way of life are different enough to imagine the weight of what was lost but still achingly familiar, and as always, Carey leavens his often bleak scenarios with empathy and hope. Readers will be thrilled to know the next two books will be published in short order.
A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-47753-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.
In the first volume of a trilogy, a fresh cataclysm besets a physically unstable world whose ruling society oppresses its most magically powerful inhabitants.
The continent ironically known as the Stillness is riddled with fault lines and volcanoes and periodically suffers from Seasons, civilization-destroying tectonic catastrophes. It’s also occupied by a small population of orogenes, people with the ability to sense and manipulate thermal and kinetic energy. They can quiet earthquakes and quench volcanoes…but also touch them off. While they’re necessary, they’re also feared and frequently lynched. The “lucky” ones are recruited by the Fulcrum, where the brutal training hones their powers in the service of the Empire. The tragic trap of the orogene's life is told through three linked narratives (the link is obvious fairly quickly): Damaya, a fierce, ambitious girl new to the Fulcrum; Syenite, an angry young woman ordered to breed with her bitter and frighteningly powerful mentor and who stumbles across secrets her masters never intended her to know; and Essun, searching for the husband who murdered her young son and ran away with her daughter mere hours before a Season tore a fiery rift across the Stillness. Jemisin (The Shadowed Sun, 2012, etc.) is utterly unflinching; she tackles racial and social politics which have obvious echoes in our own world while chronicling the painfully intimate struggle between the desire to survive at all costs and the need to maintain one’s personal integrity. Beneath the story’s fantastic trappings are incredibly real people who undergo intense, sadly believable pain.
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-22929-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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