A tale fertile with fantasy concepts—with a plot displaying room to blossom.
In this debut medieval fantasy, a young man learns how to trace—and, if need be, assassinate—targets both mundane and magical, all the while discovering his own special lineage.
Sixteen-year-old Whym Ellenrond from the RatsNest neighborhood of Riverbend is about to find out his future calling at the Choosing ceremony. He and his best friend, Kira Katona (whom he secretly loves), end up apprenticed in very different fields. She’s to become a tailor, while he takes on the role of seeker. The veteran Stern Sandoval, along with his senior apprentice, Kutan, trains Whym in the art of “catching criminals and bringing them back to face justice.” But no sooner does the trio enter the Wildes than a treacherous incident with its target, Ansel Brosz, show Whym that not all is as it seems in the Lost Land. Meanwhile, First Lord Artifis Fen and the Council of Truth wage war against the tribes of the Fringe even though the text of the Truth “wasn’t meant as a tool to govern.” One tribe, the Dragonborn of Welloch, hosts a young man named Quint, son of the Voice of the Oracle. He’s taught the tribe’s ways by Nikla, a smart, charming young woman who invigorates his religious skepticism. In this first installment of a series, McNeal rains misery on his characters from Page 1, where readers witness Stern’s father turning Whym’s great-grandfather over to the Council of Truth—thereby ending the initial wave of the Reformers Rebellion. At the narrative’s heart is a friction that consumes modern reality: religious interpretation and its place in government. Regarding the Truth and Jah (god), Whym says, “If you strip away the revisions, you’d have Jah’s pure message again.” Elsewhere along the seekers’ journey—through the Forgotten Forest and the Mysts—the author cultivates an elaborate mythos involving Faerie bloodlines. The seekers end up hunting something called the Steward, the last individual of a magical race. From there, a mechanism for unlocking magic—the Unum—links Faerie descendants to the power of the deity Amon. By the end, McNeal’s dense worldbuilding outpaces the rich drama of his worthy characters.
A tale fertile with fantasy concepts—with a plot displaying room to blossom.Pub Date: June 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-945449-21-5
Page Count: 648
Publisher: Elevate Fiction
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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