Exemplary tale of supernatural warfare and unforgettable characters.
A teen with special powers must decide if he’ll join a revolution against a wicked empire in this second installment of a YA fantasy-adventure series.
It’s been mere months since the emperor of the walled city of Altryon tried to eliminate Neil Vapros’ family and two others. All three clans, known as Lightborns for the abilities bestowed upon them by the godlike Man with the Golden Light, had been feuding for years. But now Neil and the surviving Lightborns have aligned, having fled Altryon to hide out in the land of Volteria. They use abilities—Neil can expel flames from his hands, for instance—to take out Imperial Army soldiers who come along. The emperor, however, has enlisted the Pack, a group of assassins, led by the Imperial Doctor, a vile man craving dominance and relentlessly developing his “pain index.” Volteria’s people, meanwhile, have formed a rebellion against the empire’s taxes and excessive force. The Lightborns debate joining the revolution, but its enigmatic leader, the Wolf, wants more from Neil. He claims the Man with the Golden Light has given him a cryptic message: a Lightborn forged in fire will bring about a new nation. But is Neil this destined Lightborn? As in his preceding novel, Prue (The Sparks, 2017) generates an impressive momentum with characters in perpetual conflict. This time it’s decidedly amped up, especially the more daunting villains. The Pack, for example, includes the cold and calculating Marksman and the Hyena, whose references to eating potential victims, frighteningly enough, aren’t metaphorical. The story further expands upon the series’ first: there may be more Lightborns than Neil’s aware of, and someone believed to be dead makes a return, for better or worse. Prue writes dialogue boasting a smart, wry sense of humor that’s at its best with menace behind it: when Neil accuses the Doctor of sending an animal (one of the assassins) after his friends, the villain chillingly responds, “You should be more specific.”
Exemplary tale of supernatural warfare and unforgettable characters.Pub Date: April 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5453-4864-2
Page Count: 434
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.
A teenage orphan enters a curious school and encounters mysteries and dangerous secrets in this first installment of a debut YA fantasy series.
Life in Croswald is about to change for 16-year-old orphan Ivy, a lowly castle maid in charge of the kitchen “scaldrons,” oven-heating, fire-breathing dragons. Fleeing the castle after a messy scaldron mishap, Ivy hops a strange conveyance that transports her to a school for potential quill-wielding, spell-casting “scrivenists.” (The author’s creative language—students are “sqwinches,” and “hairies” are lanterns housing fairies with luminous hair—is one of the book’s pleasures.) Learning that there is more to her gift for sketching than she realized, Ivy studies spells and the magical properties of inks and quills, but strange things keep happening. Why is an old scrivenist, long thought dead, working in secret? Why is the head of the oddly familiar school moving paintings to the “Forgetting Room” so that no one will remember they existed? How can Ivy get a look at a certain journal stored there, and what does it have to do with her recurrent dream? And why has Ivy drawn the interest of the Dark Queen of Croswald and her truly fearsome Cloaked Brood? The intrigue is layered with such whimsical inventions as one school lunchroom run by ghostly bad cooks and another by a jester who is best avoided, scrivenists who end their lives as tomes in a library, and small houses pulled by a gargantuan flying beast with its own weather system. Yes, there are many Harry Potter–ish elements: a school for young wand-wielders, quirky shops dealing in enchanted student supplies, eccentric characters, spells gone wrong, an evil pursuer. But Night’s blend of magic, danger, and suspense (and a touch of steampunk) is a well-realized, fresh fantasy world all its own, and Ivy is an appealing protagonist of relatable complexity. A few bobbles: Ivy seems to go without food for long stretches; the use of “effected” rather than “affected”; a professor who is both standing and perched on a chair.
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969486-5-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Stories Untold Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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