Despite some nice moments of suspense and adventure, this underdeveloped novel is hampered by clunky prose, a sketchily...
Two friends embark on an adventure to save their family and their world in this Christian fantasy.
Noni and Beeheart, two adolescent Gomis, have lived their whole lives in the quiet village of Gratville in Inod, far away from the dangerous lands of Sur. Though there are rumors of an encroaching threat from the evil Surlis, stirrings of discord already exist between the small, peaceful Gomis and the larger, bureaucratic Krochits. People have started mysteriously disappearing, including Noni’s parents and Beeheart’s mother, but the friends aren’t moved to act until the Surli kidnap Beeheart’s sister, Ranni. To save her, the boys embark on a journey that takes them far from home, where they discover the truth of the nefarious plot: The Surli want to take Inod and its plentiful resources for themselves. Standing in the Surlis’ way are the just, godlike being Ameno and his followers, the only ones who can end the invasion for good. What started for Noni and Beeheart as a simple quest becomes a mission to save the world. Novelist Beutel (Flora’s Story, 2014) clearly found inspiration for this novel in the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The setup of the epic journey and a number of action scenes (including pursuits, a capture and an escape) are strong. However, they are slightly derivative. Problems also arise in the novel’s unnatural dialogue (“A couple of years ago, my father disappeared mysteriously….This made me very sad, since he was the only parent I ever knew and we were very close”), flat characterization, and worldbuilding that piles on information but lacks imagination; for example, many fantastical creatures are barely altered from their real-world equivalents. There are also some uncomfortably stitched-in Christian elements, which appear as constant Biblical quotes and extended lectures, although the messages of love and responsibility are positive ones. The addition of a Jesus analogue in the all-powerful Ameno, though, creates story problems, as it becomes easy for readers to wonder why he doesn’t just fix everything with a wave of his hand.
Despite some nice moments of suspense and adventure, this underdeveloped novel is hampered by clunky prose, a sketchily drawn world and didactic religious lessons.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1490456126
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fun juvenile fiction with lively, precise narration and a strong tendency to allegory.
Whimsical quest fantasy.
Caught between the dependence of childhood–particularly the lack of a driver’s license–and the pubescent yearning for autonomy, 13-year-old Carrie faces another boring summer day at home. At her mother’s urging, she settles down in her father’s rock garden to tackle one of the remaining titles on her summer reading list, The Hobbit. Her reading is interrupted, however, when Earth momentarily scrapes Vale, a planet from another dimension. This improbable intergalactic event deposits Carrie on a world of talking birds, animals and insects, where her attention is immediately arrested by a shard of glowing amber that speaks to her, revealing itself to be Alma, a goddess trapped eons ago by Lucifer. To be freed, Alma needs Carrie to deliver the amberstone to Lobo, the Great Wolf Spirit, an appropriately Tolkienesque quest that Carrie readily takes up. Aided by a pill bug named Tilt and two youths from the near-utopian city of Safe Keep, Carrie faces natural disasters, ravenous predators and, most daunting of all, the prevailing view that the amberstone should be returned to Safe Keep rather than to Lobo. Finally, Carrie is forced to choose whether to listen to her instincts or to the voices of those who have helped her. Clearly an allegory about emerging from adolescence to find one’s moral compass, Carrie’s journey is dominated by two spiritual systems, one represented by the Guardians–ethereal, Miltonic angels who serve the Creator and guard Safe Keep–and the other embodied in Lobo, Alma and even the imps of Bleak Meadow. Lobo and Alma embody the intuitive and immanent portions of Carrie’s youthful identity, while the Guardians are the transcendent, superego of the adult world–how she chooses to balance these elements will say much about her path to maturity. Heavily influenced by Tolkien and Lewis Carroll, Lecoq’s promising debut is a lighthearted amusement powered by crisp and economic descriptive prose. The dialogue, unfortunately, rarely matches the quality of the narration, and this weakness dilutes the drama of Carrie’s adventures. Billed as young-adult fare, this would appeal more to an even younger audience.
Fun juvenile fiction with lively, precise narration and a strong tendency to allegory.Pub Date: July 2, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-3114-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A well-shaped piece of exotica, full of danger, dash, allegory and love under the banana tree.
A smart, vibrant adventure romance wrapped in a quest, fashioned to touch a wide audience.
The setting for this tale is India–the India of today, but also the India of yore and that of Western imagination, with its hot colors, heavenly scents and rich mythic history. Eighteen-year-old Kelsey Hayes finds herself in the subcontinent in the company of a circus tiger she was caring for back in Oregon. The tiger, named Dhiren, is also Alagan Dhiren, Prince of Mujulaain, commonly known as Ren–but that was back in 1657 AD, the year a curse was placed on him by Lokesh, a raja greedy for wealth and power whom Ren had thwarted. Kelsey can break the curse, and that quest takes the protagonists through challenges that would make Steven Spielberg proud. Houck has a mostly steady hand with the story’s pacing, purposeful and deliberate as she takes her time to unspool colorful nuggets of Indian history and flesh out each milieu–visiting, for instance, the butler’s pantry and spice room in Ren’s house, or the elephant’s stables and the king’s balance in the fabled city of Hampi. But she drags her feet when detailing Ren and his brother’s squabbles and takes forever to make even the most demure hay between Kelsey and Ren. Still, when she does it’s sweet fun–“I have no idea how long I was kissing him like this...My bare feet were dangling several inches from the floor.” Minor missteps–what is a GPS doing in a quest?–don’t seriously detract from the fun. Houck suffuses the book with the sheer otherness of India–monkey gods, battle elephants, caste relationships, the drape of a sari and the possibility of pure magic. Readers can’t throw a brick without hitting one shape-shifter or another in these pages. Houck conveys the mysteries with ease and clarity, drawing in readers, who’ll be glad for the wide-open ending.
A well-shaped piece of exotica, full of danger, dash, allegory and love under the banana tree.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-5043-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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