A little more moral nuance and even pacing would have enhanced this otherwise welcome return to epic fantasy.
The long-awaited follow-up to The Last Dragonlord (1998) and Dragon and Phoenix (1999) does not, actually, have very much to do with dragons or Dragonlords until the climax.
Folk of all sorts—lords, peasants, merchants, nobles and Dragonlords—are gathered for the famous Balyaranna Horse Fair. One attendee is haughty, angry Master Bard Leet, whose beloved kinsman Arnath died when sociopathic Lord Tirael thrust the boy onto the vicious stallion Summer Lightning. Determined to revenge himself on the horse and the lord, and as a bonus, hurt his erstwhile rival in love, Bard Otter, Leet uses an evil-haunted harp to enchant a boy into poisoning the horse and Otter’s beloved great-nephew Raven into murdering Tirael. Can Raven’s childhood friend Maurynna and her fellow Dragonlords uncover the true perpetrator before the apparently guilty suffer for their crimes? Bertin spends most of the book ratcheting up the tension, dotting it with threatening little incidents, before anything of note actually occurs. Ultimately, the plot structure resembles a magical cross between Columbo and Law & Order: We know from the outset who the perpetrator is; we’re just waiting for Our Heroes to find him and prove his guilt during some extremely dramatic courtroom scenes. While minor characters are slightly more well-rounded, the two villains are almost cartoonishly bad people. Readers will rejoice at evil Tirael’s (admittedly creepy) death, but it’s too bad that Bertin won’t allow readers to sympathize with Leet, a man who feels he’s lost everything he ever valued and is driven to drastic measures to heal his pain. But Leet’s cruel, bigoted, selfish and just all-around unpleasant; there’s simply nothing redeeming about him.
A little more moral nuance and even pacing would have enhanced this otherwise welcome return to epic fantasy.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-87370-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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