A brisk fantasy tale heavy on action with three interlocking narrative segments.
This debut novel features various heroes in a magical world who learn that a once-defeated evil has returned.
The warrior Erianthia, formerly of the United Front military force, lives with her horse on the edge of Murkwood forest. She once helped her nation of Sealestra vanquish the Black Crucible Cult, but not before the group released a plague called the Blight, which ravaged the Eastern Lands of Eurensia. One day, an emissary from Queen Priscilla of Tearstone visits. The man tells Erianthia that the Cult has returned, this time with a Rift Stone that will help it access the dark magic of the Rusted World. The warrior agrees to investigate the Cult’s encampment at the ruins of the Golden Gate, aided of course by her sword, Galafury, which can channel energy. After infiltrating the encampment and rescuing a girl named Anna, Erianthia heads for Tearstone. But she spies a grotesque floating pyramid—the Blight Citadel—on the horizon. The warrior doesn’t realize that she’s not the only one determined to tackle the Cult head-on by invading the fortress. The Chaos Mage, Daedelus, and the Celestial, Zeliek, eventually team up to navigate the traps and battle the hideous entities guarding the Ancient One. For his novel, Cummings sculpts fantasy tropes—especially those near and dear to role-playing gamers—into a breezy, though apocalyptic, adventure. The narrative consists of three sections, each starring different casts (with occasional overlap), and the author’s love of action carves the path forward. For example, during one sequence, “Dozens of eyeballs burst like pimples, and lightning sears large chunks of flesh from the massive tentacle like a severed tree.” Erianthia’s segment possesses the most emotional nuances, as when she tells Anna: “I am but a product of luck, a chance survivor among a sea of blood.” Elsewhere, the dialogue between Daedelus and Zeliek becomes too jocular (“Thanks Captain Obvious”). While humorous, these exchanges are frequently at odds with an epic fantasy tone. The third section, presenting orphaned teen siblings Xane and Leah, is somber enough as it circles around to bring cohesion to the story and hint at a sequel.
A brisk fantasy tale heavy on action with three interlocking narrative segments.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79523-110-7
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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