This striking tale whips up a fresh storm in familiar fantasy territory.
A debut fantasy sees a corrupt empire crumbling as enemies from within and without exact vengeance.
On the world of Urrael, the Sindathi Empire stretches across the continent of Terryth. In the 22nd year of Emperor Thelden III Arrigar’s rule, a column of Imperial Guardsmen breached the forested Kingdom of Sunset. They skirmished with the Aelfen people to retrieve a silver-haired boy, the emperor's bastard grandson. Ten years later, that boy is the princeling Drake, who’s been raised alongside Crown Prince Baildan and his twin brother, Cirrus, in the city of Arleon. Drake knows five languages and practices sorcery, but one subject with which he’d love to become better acquainted is the alluring handmaiden Leasha. Celebrating her 16th birthday, she, Drake, and her upstanding cousin Darius visit the Whirling Blade tavern. The fun ends when a drunken Baildan gives salacious attention to Leasha. Fearing that she’ll be manhandled, Drake lets loose a magical fireball that scorches the establishment’s ceiling. He’s found guilty of attempting to assassinate Baildan and is exiled to the far-flung posting of Icegate. Meanwhile, Darius, an Initiate in the Order of the Golden Path, is raised by the emperor to be Champion of the First Rank. His first mission as a soldier brings him to the hamlet of Ferrin, which revolts against Gov. Bravard. Darius is second-in-command under 1st Capt. Jarvis, who quells the rebellion with merciless violence. But when Darius learns that Bravard has been raping the girls of Ferrin, his role as a Champion becomes that much more urgent. Sterling’s lushly realized novel should scratch the itch for those awaiting more material from Game of Thrones mastermind George R.R. Martin. Terryth is an aggressively horrible place, bristling with religious and political complexities, mainly in service to Ryack, the Empire’s patron deity. Narrative sparks come from the ways in which Drake, Leasha, and Darius strive to assert their humanity with malicious forces coiling around them. As Drake imagines dying a traitor’s death, Sterling writes, “His mortal soul would be forbidden Ryack’s Aetherial embrace so that upon his expiration it would have no refuge from consumption within the Everdeep, that dread ocean of half-understood madness that awaits all who die heretics.” Fantasy elements never crowd out the human moments—which often involve suffering—but when scenes like the battle between Drake and the gigantic, hammer-wielding Vendigon occur, they bring the adventure a feverish, anything-can-happen vibe. Most riveting is Sterling’s portrayal of faith. When Darius faces Ferrin’s rebel Champion, Uldar, the man is able to summon the light and strength of Ryack because “the Order does not have a monopoly on righteousness.” While Drake, who is half-Aelfen, and Leasha, a young servant, know the hypocritical core of the Empire too well, it’s the honorable Darius whose hopes are dashed the worst. The finale to this first volume in a trilogy is staggeringly violent, made all the more effective because readers have seen the characters through both trial and mirth.
This striking tale whips up a fresh storm in familiar fantasy territory.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9992020-0-5
Page Count: 444
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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