A colorful, complex saga of civilizations inching toward conflict.
In Lawrence’s (Rising Star, 2014) fantasy sequel, humans, elves, and celestials continue preparing for total war with demonic hordes.
Asmod, Lord of the Hells, and his demons were defeated two millennia ago by the residents of the land of Elyshaeza. Elf soldier Na’lan Keldrin placed a Seal, gifted by the Seraphim and created by unknown means, over Asmod’s Breach, trapping him and keeping him from spreading his power. Now, attacks by demonic kureida have been ramping up, bolstering rumors that Asmod’s daughter, Helcol, is ready for a second War of the Races. Thankfully, several heroic factions are preparing for this challenge. The elf Ellina Alshavisin is about to leave the safety of Näenamarü Calaynin for the ancient Mithorin forest, hoping to find the Catharin, a reclusive elf tribe whose strength will be needed in the coming clash. Then there’s Artemis, a golden-skinned Glarent (a nonbinary celestial) who travels with human warriors Ishon-Zhrin and Taliyen. They aid the town of Ardall against nightly demon attacks. Elsewhere, in a tower called the Solver, celestial diplomat Gildas weighs the danger of allying against the demons with Yisrael, the leader of a violent celestial cult called the szazarsol, who may know more about Asmod’s banishment than he lets on. Meanwhile, the star Alovalianevansrae, which was “created from sealing Asmod in the Hells,” grows ever dimmer. For readers who love emotional turmoil as much as epic swordplay, author Lawrence’s second series installment provides both in abundance. He also presents foul creatures, such as gurgats, chitzriks, and flame devils, which cause havoc for secondary heroes such as Collie, a 15-year-old human girl whom the celestial Shri has chosen as his scribe, and Neil, a virtuous demon protecting the city of Notton. The author’s primary theme is the connectedness of all beings, regardless of origin, and Artemis illustrates this wonderfully when standing in awe of gigantic ghostly nature spirits. The author ends this installment by answering a central question, revealing a traitor, and teasing a new enemy for a future entry.
A colorful, complex saga of civilizations inching toward conflict.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72509-042-2
Page Count: 342
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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