Tune in later this year for The Destroyer Goddess: In Fire Forged, Part Two.
The White Dragon was meant to be a sequel to In Legend Born (1998), but the manuscript grew so long that Tor had to divide and release it as one novel in two volumes.
With In Legend Born, Resnick abandoned the romance novel (eleven published as Laura Leone) for epic historical fantasy, which is much like giving up Cheerios for boiled oats—a heartier dish in the same food group. Various conquerors have crushed the people of the mountainous island of Sileria, a folk forever engaged in internecine quarrels. Now the murderous, genocidal Valdani Empire rules, but a Guardian and outcast sorceress named Mirabar arises, a figure who works fire magic and can talk with the dead in the spirit world and is told by the Beckoner that a liberator is coming. This is visionary swordmaster Tansen, who is joined by the rebellious peasant Firebringer Josarian to raise an army and, eventually, with waterlord wizard Kiloran (with whom Tansen has long feuded) and several other Silerian factions, to overthrow the Valdani. Though successful, all Silerians still have their bloody grouches, while shifting loyalties make for densely Byzantine plotting and a tintinnabulation of similar-sounding names. But for all their infighting, Silerians are spurred on by the active and volcanic Dar, the Destroyer Goddess who chooses Sileria as her home and herself is behind Josarian’s death by Kiloran’s white ice-dragon, while the Honored Society of waterwizards offers a worse future to Sileria than do the Valdani. Though the Silerians are free, civil war rules, and Tansen is up against not only vengeful enemies but also old allies. Dar alone knows why Tansen doesn’t kill the seductress Elelar, whose betrayal brought about Josarian’s death. Questions: Will Tansen, who killed his own father, be overthrown by his son Zarien? Will Elelar and Tansen bond?
Tune in later this year for The Destroyer Goddess: In Fire Forged, Part Two.Pub Date: July 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-89056-7
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
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
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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