A compelling fantasy tale with a memorable ensemble.
In Corland’s fantasy sequel, a group of royals, spies, and other skilled adventurers work through their differences as they pursue a plan to overthrow an evil king.
A failed attempt to murder the tyrannical King Joon of Yusan has revealed secrets that rattle the group of five would-be assassins. One of them, the gem thief Aeri,is the king’s daughter, and it turns out that it was King Joon who brought her, Strongman Royo, “poison maiden” Sora, former royal spymaster Mikail, and Yusan’s banished crown prince Euyn together—not to kill the king, but to murder his sister, Queen Quilimar. Now, Aeri has lost the trust of her cohort—especially Royo, with whom she shares a mutual, albeit hesitant, attraction. Sora is more determined than ever to free her beloved sister, Daysum, from indentured servitude; she also needs to break her former traveling companion, Tiyung, out of the horrific Idle Prison. Mikail, meanwhile, seeks to liberate his homeland of Gaya, which King Joon subjugated decades earlier, by helping Euyn—his former lover—usurp the throne. Despite interpersonal conflicts and differing motivations, the group journeys to the kingdom of Khitan, hoping to forge an alliance with Queen Quilimar to overthrow King Joon. As they contend with enemy spies, villainous dignitaries, and megafauna such as zaybears, they try to repair their former bond. In this second installment of a fantasy series that began with Five Broken Blades(2024), Corland presents a thoroughly entertaining dark fantasy that’s filled with palace intrigue, adventure, and chaos. Aeri, Sora, Royo, Mikail, Euyn, and Tiyung take turns narrating the story, giving readers multiple perspectives on the myriad conflicts that the characters face. The detailed, highly developed worldbuilding also brings the book to life, enthusiastically exploring such topics as gender roles (“Mercy is seen as weakness when it’s doled out by a feminine hand”), equality, oppression, and folklore in ways that are sure to engage readers. The numerous perspectives may be difficult to keep straight at times, but this doesn’t detract from the well-constructed story.
A compelling fantasy tale with a memorable ensemble.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781649377500
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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