As long story strands weave together, stronger by far than its predecessors.
Windup entry to Reiman’s trilogy, begun with Wind From a Foreign Sky (1996) and continued with A Tremor in the Bitter Earth (1998). Tielmark’s patron goddesses, the Great Twins, guaranteed Prince Clarin his land’s independence from the Bissanty Empire if Tielmark’s royalty married only commoners. The trilogy features twin sisters, the huntress and Glamour witch Gaultry Blas, and the equally magical but headstrong Mervion. In Tremor, the Bissanty Empire again threatens Tielmark, while Gaultry captures the young assassin Tullier, bent on killing Prince Benet. Tullier’s trust in Gaultry’s mercy and conscience leads him to help her track down those behind the attempted murder. Now, the Bissanty Empire yet again threatens Tielmark and its orphan prince, Gaultry’s ward. At the marriage of the Princess Corinne, the Great Goddesses, flashing eyed and judging, manifest themselves incarnate at the altar. A spell to keep the wedding safe from Bissanty traitors is made by Tielmark’s Common Brood, or seven-member witches’ coven, while the goddesses accept the Tielmaran God-pledge made every 50 years. But some time ago the coven had failed its oath to the goddesses, and the witches may now pay with their lives—and their descendants’ lives—if the oath is not fulfilled. Gaultry joins the Common Brood at court to help deflect forever the Bissanty’s recurring demands. But the Brood-pledge is bound by the prophecy of the late Lousielle, founder of the Brood: The path of the Prince of Tielmark will run red with the blood of the Common Brood.
As long story strands weave together, stronger by far than its predecessors.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-86009-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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
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