A delightful entertainment, especially for readers versed in Chinese mythology or steeped in the films of Jet Li and company.
Second installment in popular Chinese writer Jin Yong’s immensely popular Legends of the Condor Heroes series (A Hero Born, 2019).
Louis Cha Leung-yung, pen name Jin Yong, died in 2018, having sold hundreds of millions of books in Chinese (and Korean and Vietnamese), all in the wuxia, or martial arts, tradition. Imagine Jackie Chan by way of Tolkien and you’ll have some sense of how the books work, their chapters peppered with improbably epic brawls among mythological figures with names such as Apothecary Huang, Hurricane Chen, and Cyclone Mei. This second volume finds hero Guo Jing and his beloved Lotus Huang battling their way across a countryside in which the bad guys seek the occult knowledge tucked away inside a martial arts manual whose devotees know all kinds of deadly kicks and punches. “You are a disciple of Twice Foul Dark Wind,” growls Tiger Peng the Outlaw by way of an introduction, and Lotus responds, “You promised to let me go if you couldn’t name the school of my kung fu within ten moves.” Ten moves should have been enough, especially since Lotus has already defeated the Three Horned Dragon and the Dragon King of the Daemon Sect, friends of Tiger Peng's. It’s not brawn but brains that get Lotus out of that particular pickle. Meanwhile, Guo Jing, who, having grown up among Mongol raiders and who thus “could tell the size of a herd by ear,” has plenty of adventures of his own, including falling into the company of a “sworn brother” who invites him to join him for some merry martial combat in the underworld; resisting the siren song of a magical death-dealing ditty; and embarking on a journey upon the “boundless sea” without telling Lotus of his itinerary—all grist for the next volume. On that score, fans of the series should rejoice that more books await, though their publication will reportedly be spread over a number of years, requiring plenty of patience.
A delightful entertainment, especially for readers versed in Chinese mythology or steeped in the films of Jet Li and company.Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-25011-7
Page Count: 544
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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