A visceral fantasy series opener that ultimately squanders an intriguing premise.
A god strives for cosmic and familial balance in this fantasy series starter.
Elysium is the throne planet where the angelic Order dwells—a group that seeks to guide mortals to enlightenment. Sitting upon the throne is El, the Almighty, whom the goddess Aphrodite calls “Big Cranky.” He’s rebooted the universe numerous times in an attempt to create balance between good and evil. His angelic House includes his son, Lucifer; his daughter, Calliope; and Lucifer’s wife, Lilith. When sentient life is mysteriously eradicated from six planets, El sends warriors Gabriel and Muerte to investigate. They encounter Cthulhu, the Tentacle King, and his army of shape-shifting minions; he’s been devouring souls to take revenge on El for a past betrayal. Lilith, meanwhile, has a vision in which Lucifer defeats his father for the throne. Members of the House of Cronus also covet power, including Poseidon, who was recently rejected by his wife, Posedia. As the angels take to the battlefield against Cthulhu, Poseidon and his father, Cronus, decide to stir up further chaos. El decides to personally deal with the Tentacle King, but doing so ages him noticeably; he steps aside to rest, allowing Lucifer to lead. Pyne paints his generational saga of deities in broad emotional strokes, mimicking tales from Greek and Norse mythology. The notion of placing many of humanity’s gods into a single epic is ripe with potential, and the novel’s first section builds great momentum toward a showdown with Cthulhu. Its often wry tone is enjoyable, as when El tells Lucifer, “I'll spank you over my knee, then flip you into Hell.” However, Pyne switches from grand to personal stakes abruptly, giving play to violent relationships (such as that between Calliope and Poseidon) and checking in with newly created humankind in short episodes. Various plot threads showcase familiar secondary characters, such as Apollo and Hercules, but they add to a sense of sprawl, dissipating the urgency established earlier in the work. The conclusion promises further confrontations in a sequel. Black-and-white illustrations by Spooner effectively add to the grimness of the proceedings.
A visceral fantasy series opener that ultimately squanders an intriguing premise.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77739-551-3
Page Count: 518
Publisher: ISBN CANADA
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.
A dark fantasy set on the Yale campus ends with a bang.
Galaxy “Alex” Stern of Lethe House, one of Yale’s storied secret societies, has been to hell and back. That was in Hell Bent (2023), the middle book in Bardugo’s Ninth House trilogy, where the secret societies wield not just temporal power but magic as well. Hell Bent ended with Alex and her friends rescuing her crush, mentor, and fellow Lethe officer, Daniel “Darlington” Arlington V, from eternal torment. One small wrinkle: The demon Golgarot used Alex’s blood to wedge a door open between Hell and New Haven, and his minions are slipping through. Also, one of the group has turned into a vampire, and Darlington is now half demon. “He’d given up some part of himself to preserve the rest of his human soul. He’d become both prisoner and warden.” As the final book opens, the exhausted crew are hunting yet another monster. They can’t keep this up forever; they will have to find a way to close the portal. Alex has the energetic, driven melancholy of the hard-boiled, dark fantasy heroine she is. She believes “magic is real, but safe is make-believe,” as her roommate puts it. An open hellmouth, a supportive scholar, a vampire whose story arcs precariously toward redemption, a gentleman fiend who gets literally horny when aroused, a California girl with rare supernatural powers who cracks wise as she fights fiends—the series has a lot in common with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spawn, but Bardugo’s way with words and her keen social observation keep the book from feeling derivative. A demon’s classic New England house is decorated with “ruthlessly inoffensive watercolor seascapes”; Lethe’s board president “wore the new uniform of Wall Street: a dress shirt, khakis, and a fleece with a Yale Y embroidered over the heart, as if he were on his way to a hostile takeover followed by some light rock climbing.” Will Alex and her friends get the door shut without losing Darlington? Bardugo injects her protagonist with such a convincing mix of cynicism and hope that failure seems like a distinct possibility.
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781250884312
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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