A grand entry in a consistently gripping and remarkable urban fantasy saga.
Two lovers discover new paranormal gifts and enemies in this third installment of a series.
Things seem to be looking up for Laurence Riley in San Diego, California. The god Herne the Hunter appears before him and tells him that, along with other abilities like precognition, Laurence is capable of magic. Actually learning magic will necessitate seeking out a man named Rufus Grant, whom Laurence first saw in a vision. Meanwhile, Laurence’s romantic relationship with British Earl Quentin d’Arcy has become decidedly more fervent. Unfortunately, the earl has an unwelcome encounter with his own father, the Duke of Oxford, who Quentin is convinced killed his mother. The duke demands his son return home, and Quentin, who has essentially been hiding out in the United States, suspects his father tracked him down via magic. Sadly, the duke’s presence casts a dark cloud over the lives of both lovers. Laurence subsequently has a glimpse of the past involving 5-year-old Quentin suffering his father’s abuse. The vision is so horrifying it nearly sends Laurence back to his heroin habit. Soon, Black Annis, a “blue-tinged” creature, threatens the youngsters with special abilities whom Quentin has befriended and cares for. Alarmingly, the creature vows to eat the children. In order to defeat Black Annis, Laurence will have to acquire a weapon from the Otherworld, a place outside of the mortal realm. But as he can only use the weapon for a specific purpose, Laurence must resist the temptation to slay both the blue-tinged creature and Quentin’s depraved father with it.
Faulkner (Knight of Flames, 2019, etc.) excels at creating individual stories within a cohesive urban fantasy series arc. For example, this book spotlights Quentin’s frayed connection to his father. But earlier installments had teased this with Quentin’s outburst at his mother’s funeral (which Laurence also sees in a vision in this story) and the earl’s scars, courtesy of the duke. As in the preceding novel, the couple’s relationship and shared intimacy show progress, having begun with virginal Quentin’s hesitancy. This time their scenes are unmitigated erotica, as they’re much more explicit than before. The author beefs up the pages with characters from folklore (including Black Annis) while Laurence’s trek through the Otherworld features a few recognizable faces (and objects) from Arthurian legend. Despite the story’s overall grimness, there are occasional lighter touches, like periodic appearances of the couple’s loyal dogs, Pepper and Grace. Similarly, Herne’s gift to Laurence is a raven egg. The resultant “bald little pink baby” raven, named Windsor, is like a child, as Laurence regularly feeds him and sometimes needs others to birdsit. Eventually, the raven, Laurence’s familiar, will be able to relay messages to the god. Readers anticipating the author’s knack for indelible prose won’t be disappointed: Laurence “lowered his hand to the pendant as he spoke the final word, and the universe became a vacuum….His life flashed from heart to fingertips, and he saw whorls of green flow from his fingers and into the pentagram.”
A grand entry in a consistently gripping and remarkable urban fantasy saga.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-912349-13-5
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Ravensword Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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