A pulsating blood-booster for raw adolescents—nobody over 20 should buy this.
Blade meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this first of a trilogy about a no-nonsense guerrilla leader of a rock-’n’-roll vampire-killer band. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to make Rolling Stone.
Like, really, does this all spring from Sun-tzu’s The Art of War, as the pseudonymous Banks suggests? Or does Damali Richards’s destiny spring from an event 20 years before, in New Orleans, when her father, Reverend Armand Richards, was turned by master vampire Fallon Nuit and her mother Sarah went to the swamp witch and fatally tried to follow the witch’s steps for exorcising Fallon Nuit, a member of the Vampire High Council and an elder dweller of the dark realm? While all that took place, the Richards’s infant Damali was baby-sat by Marlene Stone—while now, in the present, Marlene is the graying, visionary, real cool seer-guardian of Damali’s Warriors of Light Productions guardian-slayer band of devampers, with Sistah Marlene on electric violin, Mexican Indian Jose, a.k.a. Wizard, on drums and crossbow, Jake Rider on electric guitar, J.L. on crossbow, wooden stake and computer, Big Mike Roberts as audio-sensor, and Shabazz as Aikido-instructor/choreographer/bassist. That’s a bassist who triples in martial arts and dance? Whatever. You know the drill: Rhino bullets fresh-packed with hallowed earth, holy water grenades with the blast of C-4. Just don’t get nicked and turned when vibes sense in the audience multiple cold bodies that need icing. Nobody’s expendable, and four band members have already been nicked or exhumaned. But chill, man, Damali’s kick-ass elements can bring down a small army of vampires. So let’s do this. Except that Damali’s team now finds itself fighting a newer entity that eats out necks, hearts—call it the Amanthra thing from Hell. Later, Fallon Nuit abducts Damali’s sometime lover Carlos Rivera, a Hollywood club owner, and tempts him with the earthly glories earned by Blood Music, Inc. Bad, bad Carlos.
A pulsating blood-booster for raw adolescents—nobody over 20 should buy this.Pub Date: June 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-31680-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003
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
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
