Despite some flaws, definitely a series to follow.
A tradesman fleeing a personal tragedy is thrust into more elevated and considerably more perilous circumstances in the first of a political sword-and-sorcery epic by the author of Shadow's Master (2012).
Ship’s carpenter Horace is bound for the crusade to fight the Akeshian Empire when a strange storm wrecks the Bantu Ray and Horace finds himself marooned in Erugash, a city-state in Akeshia. He’s immediately captured and enslaved; his fortunes and his danger rise during another storm, which reveals that Horace possesses zoana, or elemental magic. Unchained and whisked to Queen Byleth’s court, Horace must quickly learn to master his previously unknown magic, which makes him both a power to be reckoned with and a target for rival nobles, the priests of the Sun Cult and other more covert forces who seek the queen’s downfall. Akeshia is somewhat based on ancient Egypt, and Horace clearly comes from a more European milieu; the assimilation of a white man into a dark-skinned alien culture and his superior mastery of an ability intrinsic to that culture whiffs faintly (and vaguely unpleasantly) of Dances With Wolves or The Last Samurai. And perhaps a bit too much is made of Horace’s nobility of character, used to explain why queen’s handmaiden (and foreign spy) Alyra and closeted-gay, enslaved soldier Jirom are both so drawn to him. But it’s undeniable that this novel is also sheer fun, with engaging, pulse-quickening action, sympathetic characters and intricate intrigue.
Despite some flaws, definitely a series to follow.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-893-5
Page Count: 445
Publisher: Pyr/Prometheus Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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 somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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