Provides an action-packed turning point in the series and sets the stage for fresh adventures.
Hammer’s (Balor’s Might, 2015, etc.) third adventure finds the demon-smashing Sons of Odin on the brink of annihilation.
Dark clouds spread from the peak of Kerak’Otozi, and the threat of the Dark One looms over the fantastic world of Kismeria. The Sons of Odin—Adem Highlander, Wil Martyr, and Carl Wilder—along with the Daughter of Thor, Jean Fairsythe, realize that they must grow their ranks and power before their prophesied showdown with unimaginable evil. Personal dilemmas plague Adem, like the migraines that require daily Healing and the insufferable Princess Isabelle, who’s pregnant with their child. Fortune graces the heroes when the vampiric Hayley begins swearing captured vampires into her newly formed coven. Further help arrives in the form of Shienden’kroxus, a small emerald dragon that Adem creates (according to prophecy) with the Power. While battling demons along the Borderlands, Adem has the epiphany that, “even these bloodthirsty monsters were victims in the Dark Lord’s incessant schemes.” Adem and his dragon eventually venture forth separately from Kismeria’s heroes. He wonders, “if he felt compassion for evil, was he not also becoming evil?” Worse, Adem blocks his companions from communicating through their patron deities, the Battle Angels, which sets them worrying that madness has finally taken him. In his third installment of the series, Hammer continues to tap a vein of phantasmagoric mayhem that should mesmerize video gamers and fans of the Lord of the Rings alike. Nearly every page displays eye-popping battle visuals: “Lightning filled the sky, a rainbow of coloured bolts, a thousand falling every second to turn the grey haze into a bright neon flare.” That said, readers of more character-driven fantasies may grow fatigued by Hammer’s penchant for elaborate magical warfare. Heartfelt surprises abound, however, like when Adem quotes from the Bible to describe Jean (“She is more precious than rubies, nothing you desire can compare with her”). The underlying themes of humanity’s imperfection and the individual’s struggle toward a truer self permeate this narrative, which sets the heroes in a new direction.
Provides an action-packed turning point in the series and sets the stage for fresh adventures.Pub Date: March 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4931-3591-2
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strong, thoughtful, and fast-paced follow-up that bodes well for future volumes.
In the second installment of a political fantasy thriller series where “bioenergetic jade” provides magical energy, the conflict of two warlord/organized crime clans has global implications.
In the Hong Kong-like city of Janloon, the Mountain and No Peak clans have announced a public truce while each secretly tries to undermine the other for control of the city and their nation of Kekon, the only source of the jade. As jade smugglers both inside and outside the country threaten the clans’ mutual control over the mineral, political tensions rise between the neighboring nations of Espenia and Ygutan over a rebellion in Shotar, which leads both to seek more jade for their armies. Meanwhile, Hilo, the former Horn (chief enforcer) of the No Peak clan, struggles to master the tactics he needs to fill his late brother’s role as Pillar (clan leader). His sister, Shae, the clan’s Weather Man (chief advisor), has that tactical knowledge but lacks the clan’s complete trust; she’s also trying to juggle her clan responsibilities and her personal life, which includes a quiet romance with a nonclan professor. At the same time, their adopted brother, Anden, embarks on a new, jade-free life in Espenia but still manages to find trouble there, and Hilo’s jade-immune wife, Wen, secretly supports the clan through her own work as a spy. If they are to prevail against the ruthless Ayt Mada, Pillar of the Mountain clan, and the various other domestic and foreign threats, terrible sacrifices will be required, made willingly or not. The first installment, Jade City (2017), leaned rather heavily, albeit effectively, on some tropes and plot points from The Godfather, and it’s pleasing to see that the author has chosen a more independent path this time around. If there’s any thematic link between this book and Godfather II, it’s a common understanding that the outside world has a way of crashing into isolated communities and forcing them to adapt, so it’s best to be on the offensive, as well as a rueful acknowledgment that despite that understanding, relationships with those outside the community might not end well.
A strong, thoughtful, and fast-paced follow-up that bodes well for future volumes.Pub Date: July 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-44092-9
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love.
An independent young girl finds a blue door in a field and glimpses another world, nudging her onto a path of discovery, destiny, empowerment, and love.
Set at the turn of the 20th century, Harrow's debut novel centers on January Scaller, who grows up under the watchful eye of the wealthy Cornelius Locke, who employs her father, Julian, to travel the globe in search of odd objects and valuable treasures to pad his collection, housed in a sprawling Vermont mansion. January appears to have a charmed childhood but is stifled by the high-society old boy’s club of Mr. Locke and his friends, who treat her as a curiosity—a mixed-race girl with a precocious streak, forced into elaborate outfits and docile behavior for the annual society gatherings. When she's 17, her father seemingly disappears, and January finds a book that will change her life forever. With her motley crew of allies—Samuel, the grocer’s son; Jane, the Kenyan woman sent by Julian to be January’s companion; and Bad, her faithful dog—January embarks on an adventure that will lead her to discover secrets about Mr. Locke, the world and its hidden doorways, and her own family. Harrow employs the image of the door (“Sometimes I feel there are doors lurking in the creases of every sentence, with periods for knobs and verbs for hinges”) as well as the metaphor (a “geometry of absence”) to great effect. Similes and vivid imagery adorn nearly every page like glittering garlands. While some stereotypes are present, such as the depiction of East African women as pantherlike, the book has a diverse cast of characters and a strong woman lead. This portal fantasy doesn’t shy away from racism, classism, and sexism, which helps it succeed as an interesting story.
A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-42199-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Redhook/Orbit
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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