More and more scattershot, as memories of the firmly grounded, tightly knit, charming series opener recede into the murk.
Third entry in Carroll's urban fantasy series, following the somnambulistic The Watchtower (2011).
This time, the pace picks up to a frantic pitch, with so much going on it’s hard to follow, let alone become involved. First-person narrator and Watchtower Garet James, heir to a sort of anti-evil witch coven, succeeded in bringing her love, poet Will Hughes, from 17th-century London to 21st-century Paris. Unfortunately, he’s the wrong version—she really wanted the charismatic vampire that young Will, 400 years later, will become. However, we soon learn, through numerous omniscient narrative threads, that elder Will is also around, having become de-vampired, and now is a well-known and highly proficient currency trader. But with both Wills in the world at the same time, elder Will’s losing his immunity to the sun, while young Will’s in danger of becoming destabilized in time. Throw in some fairies, Johannes Kepler (don’t ask), the Institut Chronologique—whose Knights Temporal can travel through time and whose mission is to preserve the current timeline—and bad guys ranging from evil sorcerer John Dee and his boss, the monstrous vampire and Babylonian ex-god Marduk, to the Malefactors, time travelers intent on changing things around to suit themselves. You can imagine the size and shape of the plot necessary to accommodate all this, let alone the effort needed to determine if it adds up. Swaggering, pill-popping Marduk, twanging his fangs and twirling his mustachio (well, figuratively, anyway), would have been a star on the vaudeville stage. Instead of poetry, we’re served limp doggerel.
More and more scattershot, as memories of the firmly grounded, tightly knit, charming series opener recede into the murk.Pub Date: March 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2599-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mesmerizing in its simplicity, this second novel from Tuck (Interviewing Matisse, or, the Woman Who Died Standing Up, 1991) lyrically traces one woman's search for spiritual enlightenment and self-fulfillment—or at least for a life away from suburban Connecticut. Reminiscent of Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, the story is broken into 76 slim, self-contained, dreamlike chapters. Each of these, randomly strung together, builds an engrossing portrait of Adele—a shining star of a woman, so charming and admirable that she draws everyone into her orbit. Her defining feature (and Tuck's recurring theme, repeated in a series of mystic tales on the requirements needed to walk on water) is her courage in the ocean: Bystanders gawk as Adele and her three Irish setters swim out so far they're transformed into dots on the horizon. The narrator is an unnamed friend, an annual companion at the exclusive Caribbean resort Adele and her family frequent, an unabashed admirer of Adele's near-mythic personalty. She pieces together the story of their friendship, of Adele's past, and, most importantly, of Adele's scandalous decision to leave her relatively happy life with husband and two children to follow an Indian guru she meets while vacationing in France. In an attempt to get her home from India, Adele's husband, Howard, promises her a solitary trip to the Caribbean to think things over, sending her dogs down for swimming companionship. It's there that Adele tells about her strange adventures of self-abnegation with the guru, her thinning body and graying hair, and, stranger still, her inability to leave His presence. As each passage shifts into the next, explanations are expected for Adele's abandonment of home and hearth. Instead of answers, though, there come parables of enlightenment that, finally, make a far stronger case for Adele's submission to the guru than any stubbornness or weakness of will. An exquisite, gem-like treatise on the nature of illumination- -a case study of metamorphosis.
Pub Date: March 5, 1996
ISBN: 1-57322-021-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
Another otherworld fantasy from the author of The Wolf of Winter (1993), etc. The teeming, rather backward folk of subtropical Aveshq are dominated, politically and economically, by the brisk, progressive Vonahrish—the obvious model being the British occupation of India. In an attempt to suppress the native Aoun-Father cult and its horrid rites, young Vonahrish gentleman Renille will try to assassinate its high priest, KhriNayd-Son. But Renille discovers that Aoun-Father is real, a godlike being from a higher reality. Pursued by vengeful priests, Renille barely escapes with his life, then stumbles into OodPray—the crumbling palace of Aveshq's former rulers, now occupied by the noble Xundunisse and her daughter, Jathondi. Jathondi believes Renille's story, but Xundunisse is determined to expel the Vonahrish by any means, and arranges to marry Jathondi off. Goaded by KhriNayd-Son, meanwhile, Aveshq rises up against the Vonahrish. Jathondi escapes her mother's attentions only to be captured by priests and prepared for sacrifice. Later, Renille rescues Jathondi, while Xundunisse, coming to her senses at last, prepares to ask for major-league magical help. Volsky's all too thinly disguised cultural/religious clash is further undermined by the exotic labels hung upon familiar objects: in all, somewhat above average but decidedly disappointing nonetheless.
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-553-37394-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
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