A rollicking supernatural tale that will intrigue history fans and scratch their itch for adventure.
This historical fantasy debut sees soldiers hunt ancient, magical artifacts during the Mexican-American War.
In 1847, the United States battles Mexico for possession of North America’s western half. Lt. Jedediah Faust stands aboard the USS Bunker Hill off the coast of Veracruz. Through an enchanted telescope, he watches some Mexican soldiers on shore who have fiery blue auras. These aren’t merely warriors—they’re men controlled by ghostly “tormentors.” Faust takes Sgt. Cormac McGuinness and Pvt. Benjamin Crowe ashore to hunt the creatures. His ultimate quarry is Viktor Chernyad, the Russian sorcerer responsible for animating the tormentors. Chernyad is a member of the Order of Exultus. He manipulates President Antonio López de Santa Anna’s troops so that he may locate the powerful Lamp of Shadow, rumored to be in Mexico. With the Lamp of Light already in his clutches, Chernyad needs the second object to open the dark dimension and free the vile wizard Tellurach, who would bring hell to Earth. Faust, for his part, would rather fight a war with mortals. But his lineage, including his father, Zebulon, has battled the Order for centuries. At a subterranean pyramid called the Pit of the White Serpent, Faust and company seemingly defeat Chernyad. While the villain escapes, the heroes take possession of the Lamp of Shadow. Zebulon pulls strings and sends his son to Paris to consult with Jacques de Molay, the “last Master of the Order of the Temple in Jerusalem,” about how to keep the artifact safe. The meeting broadens Faust’s mission substantially, encompassing the being called Arananth and the ancient city of Atlantis. Halleck’s series opener summons the kind of swashbuckling fun associated with Conan the Barbarian novels and Indiana Jones films. The well-rendered opening scene, with cameos by Gen. Zachary Taylor and Santa Anna, will convince readers that there’s plenty of adventure to be had without jumping continents. Historical details, including the Mexican army’s “antique artillery,” provide a narrative launchpad with gravitas. Yet confident storytelling and excellent pacing will ensnare readers, and the tormentors—“undead creatures whose souls have been twisted by dark magic”—only hint at the weirder tale ahead. The author’s prose spearheads each scene change in lines like this one, which depicts the heroes’ descent into the Paris catacombs: “Darkness fled from their torches like a ship cutting against a relentless black tide.” Intriguing characters interact with one another in entertaining ways. Throughout, Faust is rankled by Capt. Percival Blancheford, whose wealth and means supply transportation for the heroes. Crowe tells Faust: “You try to convince yourself that you’re better off without him, but you want to be exactly like him.” Numerous surprises lurk in the novel’s final third, including betrayal, death, and the femme fatale Capt. Zenobia Nubis. Audiences will forgive Halleck if his tale structurally resembles a football match, with the lamps bouncing between teams. He establishes a rich lore of “nine ancient cities” descended from the empire of “Alhur” and nonhuman entities called preternaturals (one of them being Balthazar Macabre) who may or may not interfere with mortal events. Both elements should allow the author an even deeper dive into strangeness for the sequel.
A rollicking supernatural tale that will intrigue history fans and scratch their itch for adventure.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-980960-12-6
Page Count: 247
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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