A pleasure for readers of fantasy outside the Western tradition.
The inaugural volume of an inventive swords-and-sorcery series by a skilled Korean novelist.
Lee, South Korea’s leading fantasy writer, is a skilled worldbuilder in the Tolkien vein. Certainly this story has Tolkien-esque moments, framed by a shared journey in dangerous territory by very different characters. These represent each of the world’s four races, as exemplified by the steely human Kagan Draca, who patrols a desolate area looking for Nhaga who’ve strayed beyond the bounds of their tropical world, there to dispatch them with an extremely unusual sword, then “eating them without much fuss.” The Nhaga are half reptile, half human, with a strange coming-of-age custom of removing their hearts for collective storage. Plus, to judge by one hungry Nhaga, Ryun Pei, in a slightly yucky moment, they’re capable of swallowing an anteater whole. The goblinlike Tokkebi “do not like war. Unless they see it as some interesting plaything.” They’re pretty tough all the same, if also mischievous. And the Rekon are birdlike giants who wield blades most vorpal. What’s a bad guy to do in the face of this company? Well, we don’t really know at the start who or what poses the gravest challenge to their quest to escort a Nhaga envoy to a Zen temple, despite dragons and skyborne tigers (and that Nhaga-eating Kagan, for that matter). Lee draws on a range of references that will likely be unfamiliar to non-Korean readers—for instance, Buddhist iconography and ancient legends from the kingdom of Silla, the latter woven in to nicely poetic effect (“They say the bird that drinks tears sings the most beautiful song in the world”). It’s not always easy connecting to the characters, who aren’t quite as cuddly as hobbits, but it’s interesting to see how they overcome their prejudices to form their own fellowship.
A pleasure for readers of fantasy outside the Western tradition.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9780063349896
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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