A curious, but curiously charming, allegory of a world in crisis.
Two hero(ine)s journey through a vast, crumbling palace that houses a surrealistic, decaying civilization.
Kew serves as apprentice to Hawthorn, the elderly Guardian of the West Passage. When Hawthorn dies, she tells Kew to warn Black Tower that the Beast will rise again, but she unfortunately fails to officially name him her successor, despite the fact that the Beast must be confronted by the Guardian. Kew therefore must leave Grey Tower and deliver the message to Black Tower, hoping that in return he will be named the next Hawthorn. The Beast’s slow emergence brings on a dangerously early winter; perhaps Black Tower could give the wheel of seasons a turn? Hoping to save the struggling people of Grey and to recover Hawthorn’s funeral mask (which Kew has taken), young Mother Yarrow of Grey House sets off in ineffectual pursuit. These two have separate adventures wandering through the crumbling, nearly uninhabited areas of the palace, where the remaining people engage in meaningless ritual: trying to teach apes to speak, concocting elaborate feasts that no one eats, issuing endless, pointless pronouncements that no one obeys, and so on. Meanwhile, the gigantic ruling Ladies of the palace are too self-involved to truly confront the crisis or to rule in general, having either gone mad or become more concerned with fighting the other Ladies for scraps of power. This is a vividly depicted, decidedly peculiar world governed by an inexplicable logic, where the seasons are determined by a vast wheel; people have animal, plant, or even inorganic characteristics; and rising up in the ranks of one’s profession might mean switching genders or undergoing other physical alterations. Its fablelike but off-kilter qualities and architectural setting will likely appeal to fans of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Angélica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial, and Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel series.
A curious, but curiously charming, allegory of a world in crisis.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884831
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tordotcom
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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