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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
