A yarn that, with its second novel woes, trips, staggers, and recovers, ultimately to delight and enthrall.
The second installment of Turner’s projected fantasy trilogy (Red Tide, 2016, etc.), wherein, disconcertingly, perhaps even disappointingly, none of the previous characters or locales reappear.
It’s not all gloom and doom, though. This time, a power struggle among the ruling water-mages of the Storm Isles, backed by another swarming if less engaging supporting cast, develops complications in a dazzling new setting. Imerle Polivar, emira (leader) of the Storm Council, must retire from her position. She’s already plotting, however, to destroy the other Storm Lords and rule forever. Rapidly approaching is the annual sea dragon hunt—a bizarre and horrifyingly dangerous ritual that Imerle intends to twist to her own ends, blind to the fact that her most powerful rival, Mazana Creed, is plotting a coup. Another Guardian, Senar Sol, has been sent into exile via a magical gateway by an emperor who seemingly wants the Guardians destroyed altogether. Not one but two assassins show up to kill Imerle, one a curiously bright-eyed woman, the other a man with skin that resembles granite and powerful water-magic—but did Mazana really send them both? And who, or what, is the stone-skinned stranger? The whole thing culminates in a titanic brouhaha involving ships, a ruinous battle whose setting is a subaqueous palace maintained by Storm Lord magic, sharks, dragons, and what-all. Not the tightly focused, relentless all-actioner that the previous book was, it takes a few hundred pages to get going, has persistent flabby patches, and the power struggle’s on a personal rather than a desperately existential level. But there are still plenty of surprises, stunningly inventive magics, witty dialogue, and flashes of bleak humor amid the carnage.
A yarn that, with its second novel woes, trips, staggers, and recovers, ultimately to delight and enthrall.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3713-9
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.
When Cat, a mysterious circus soothsayer, is captured by Griffin, a wily warlord who recently won his kingdom’s crown, she's disarmed by his strength, honor, and integrity, but she's afraid that tying her heart to his can only bring weakness and complications.
Cat has spent years in a circus, hiding from her past and avoiding the destiny that’s been ordained by an Oracle, until Griffin discovers her ability to know when people are lying and forces her to return with him to his kingdom. At first he's determined to use her as a weapon to help his family, which has recently taken the throne, but soon Griffin realizes that beneath Cat’s prickly personality lies a loyal heart and a font of magic unlike anything he’s ever seen—possibly unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Sexual and emotional tension crackles as they and their small band of warriors fight to get back to Griffin's kingdom, with Cat pledging her grudging allegiance after they're attacked by such a variety of enemies that it's hard to tell who’s after Griffin and who’s after Cat. Griffin is tired of magical royalty and nobility who look down their noses at their nonmagical subjects and ruin their kingdoms through selfish greed, and he's intrigued by his soothsayer, who clearly has noble breeding but has turned her back on her own past. She isn’t giving any secrets away, but as clues trickle out, it becomes clear that someone out there wants to take her alive and that the power Griffin has seen may be nothing compared to what she’s capable of, yet fighting her feelings—for Griffin, his team, his family—becomes almost as hard as hiding her magic. Debut author Bouchet tells a swashbuckling tale through Cat’s irreverent, diffident, yet still somehow buoyant first-person point of view; this is an exquisite high-fantasy romance with masterful worldbuilding based on Greek mythology.
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-2601-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Will wolves and orcs—or whatever they are—take over the world, or will the good guys prevail? Jordan’s fans, who are legion,...
“There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.” Even so, with this volume, the late Jordan’s hyperinflated Wheel of Time series grinds to a halt.
Jordan (Eye of the World, 1990, etc.), here revived by way of the extensive notebooks, drafts and outlines he left behind by amanuensis Sanderson (Creative Writing/Brigham Young Univ.), was an ascended master of second-tier Tolkien-ism; the world he creates is as densely detailed as Middle-earth, and if the geography sounds similar, pocked with place names such as Far Madding and the Blasted Lands, that’s no accident. Tolkien-esque, too, is the scenario for this saga-closer, namely a “last battle” in which the forces of good are arrayed against those of darkness. The careless reader might take this to be a battle of hairdressers in a West Indian neighborhood: “The Dreadlords came for him eventually, sending an explosion to finish the job. Deepe spent the last moments throwing weaves at them. He died well.” That’s not the case, of course; instead, saga heroes Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara range the lands beyond the Dark One’s prison to do all manner of good and adventuresome things. It’s a strange world, that: Perrin finds the pit to end all pits, “[a]n eternal expanse, like the blackness of the Ways, only this one seemed to be pulling him into it.” But then, what kind of epic would it be if it weren’t a strange place?
Will wolves and orcs—or whatever they are—take over the world, or will the good guys prevail? Jordan’s fans, who are legion, will most decidedly want to learn the answer to that question.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2595-2
Page Count: 912
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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