Grimsley's backdrop's and quantum-magic ideas are deeply considered and impressively detailed, but the rest is obvious,...
Fantasy from the southern playwright and author of Comfort and Joy (1999), etc. Blue Queen Athryn Ardfalla, refusing to yield her throne to the Red King, Kirith Kirin, as tradition and law demand, has allied herself with an evil wizard, Drudaen Keerfax, and has grievously oppressed the people. Kirith Kirin, keeping to the forest of Arthen where the queen cannot go, plots to remedy the situation. His seer, Mordwen, in response to a prophecy, sends for young sheepherder Jessex to tend the lamps at the forest's shrine. But Jessex, the son and grandson of witches, has more talents than are apparent. Three weird sisters—the Fates, in effect—spirit him away to a magical lake, where they teach him magic in a sort of time warp. Then Jessex learns that the queen's witch, Julassa, has killed his family and captured his mother. Kirith Kirin, meanwhile, falls in love with Jessex. Constrained by the sisters never to use his magic, Jessex progresses rapidly, resisting Drudaen's blandishments—until Julassa threatens to annihilate Kirith Kirin and his armies in battle. Jessex kills Julassa, but the sisters agree that this too is part of his development, while they wait for a major-league wizard, Yron, to show up. Finally, the war of liberation gets going and Jessex realizes who he really is.
Grimsley's backdrop's and quantum-magic ideas are deeply considered and impressively detailed, but the rest is obvious, overly familiar, and weighs a ton.Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-892065-16-9
Page Count: 456
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
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
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.
When Cat, a mysterious circus soothsayer, is captured by Griffin, a wily warlord who recently won his kingdom’s crown, she's disarmed by his strength, honor, and integrity, but she's afraid that tying her heart to his can only bring weakness and complications.
Cat has spent years in a circus, hiding from her past and avoiding the destiny that’s been ordained by an Oracle, until Griffin discovers her ability to know when people are lying and forces her to return with him to his kingdom. At first he's determined to use her as a weapon to help his family, which has recently taken the throne, but soon Griffin realizes that beneath Cat’s prickly personality lies a loyal heart and a font of magic unlike anything he’s ever seen—possibly unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Sexual and emotional tension crackles as they and their small band of warriors fight to get back to Griffin's kingdom, with Cat pledging her grudging allegiance after they're attacked by such a variety of enemies that it's hard to tell who’s after Griffin and who’s after Cat. Griffin is tired of magical royalty and nobility who look down their noses at their nonmagical subjects and ruin their kingdoms through selfish greed, and he's intrigued by his soothsayer, who clearly has noble breeding but has turned her back on her own past. She isn’t giving any secrets away, but as clues trickle out, it becomes clear that someone out there wants to take her alive and that the power Griffin has seen may be nothing compared to what she’s capable of, yet fighting her feelings—for Griffin, his team, his family—becomes almost as hard as hiding her magic. Debut author Bouchet tells a swashbuckling tale through Cat’s irreverent, diffident, yet still somehow buoyant first-person point of view; this is an exquisite high-fantasy romance with masterful worldbuilding based on Greek mythology.
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-2601-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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