A genuine page-turner: dependable entertainment with no claims to profundity.
The author of Besieged (2017, etc.), kicks off a new doorstopper fantasy trilogy in which a peaceful continent suffers coincidental invasions by different giant races.
In this convincingly realized world, most races have their own particular magic endowment, or “kenning,” whose rites of passage few postulants survive; those that do learn that using their power overmuch causes rapid physical aging. A huge volcanic explosion drives the 12-foot-tall Hathrim (kenning: fire) from their homeland. Their leader, Gorin Mogen, long ago laid plans to illegally build a new city in the unoccupied forests of Ghurana Nent—a move neighboring Forn (kenning: plants) refuse to countenance. The Nentians themselves, preoccupied with internecine political struggles, have no kenning and can bring only armies to oppose the invaders. Until, that is, young Abhi survives an attack by wild animals and discovers he’s found the sixth kenning. A second race, meanwhile, called Bone Giants for the strange armor they wear, invades Bryn (water). They speak an unknown language, until Kaurian (air) scholar Gondel Vedd learns from a Bone Giant captive that his race seeks the (unknown) seventh kenning, insisting that the seventh will defeat the other six. All this is sturdily constructed and exceptionally well thought out, though don’t expect great characters. Hearne, totally unnecessarily, frames the entire narrative as a performance by Fintan, a Raelech (earth) bard personally involved in the action but distrusted by many, whose kenning enables him to take on the semblance of each actor in the drama. Dervan, a scribe writing it all down, provides still another entanglement with his own involved personal life. It’s all vividly described, moves briskly, and features a splendid climax that resolves the main issue while leaving plenty still to come. Most intriguing of all are the ways the various kennings interact, reminiscent of Fred Saberhagen’s Lost Swords yarns.
A genuine page-turner: dependable entertainment with no claims to profundity.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-345-54860-3
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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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