Even those immune to the charms of fantasy and operatic tribal warfare can admire Hearn’s skill at juggling so many...
The second installment in Hearn’s The Tale of Shikanoko series about a mythical version of feudal Japan.
Newcomers to the series may initially find it difficult to follow the storyline, which picks up without preamble or recap where Emperor of the Eight Islands (2016) left off. The young warrior sorcerer Shika awakens in the Darkwood and returns to the hut of the sorcerer Shisoku, whom he hasn’t seen for more than a year, with the magic mask Shisoku made for him and that he has broken. The sorceress Lady Tora shows up at the hut, too, and soon gives birth to five demon male children. Before the flames of death engulf her, she charges Shika to raise the boys, who grow with unnatural speed. Shika yearns to find Aki, the princess he loves but betrayed, and Yoshimori, the Hidden Emperor whom he wants to restore to the throne, but first he sets out to regain the estate his uncle has stolen from him. Meanwhile, Aki and Yoshimori find protection among a family of monkeys. Lord Aritomo of the Miboshi has taken political control as the new emperor and sends off his close ally Takaakira to find Aki at her father’s old estate, unaware that Takaakira is harboring Hina, daughter of Aritomo’s slain enemy Lord Kiyoyori. Hina’s self-serving but charismatic uncle Masachika keeps switching allegiances between the warring factions of Miboshi and Kuromori but still loves his estranged wife, Tama, who has won a legal battle against him over her father’s land. Gradually these major characters begin to have fateful interactions with each other, fueled by human love, greed, ambition, and vengeance, while aided or hindered by supernatural forces often hidden within animals or objects. At the center is Shika, whose frequent escapes from death promise a special destiny.
Even those immune to the charms of fantasy and operatic tribal warfare can admire Hearn’s skill at juggling so many characters who defy fairy-tale simplicity.Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-53632-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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