by Marie Brennan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2017
Catch them all. Don’t start here.
Fifth and final chapter (In the Labyrinth of Drakes, 2016, etc.) of the memoirs of Isabella, Lady Trent of Scirland, dragon naturalist extraordinaire.
Iconoclastic, indomitable, and perspicacious, Isabella refuses to allow the prevailing Victorian ethos to deflect her from exploring and learning about dragons, which in this world are ubiquitous and take a bewildering variety of forms. Her one unrealized ambition is to force her way into the prestigious all-male Philosophers’ Colloquium. As her husband, Suhail, attempts to decipher inscriptions in Draconean, the language of a long-vanished Draconean Empire wherein humans tamed, or perhaps worshipped, creatures who resembled bipedal dragons, a furtive stranger named Thu Phim-lat shows up; he’s a native of the remote, mountainous country of Yelang, whose expansionist ambitions threaten Scirland. Thu reports discovering the remains of dragons preserved in the ice atop Yelang’s loftiest peaks; they appear to be of an unknown and possibly extinct type. (Left to their own devices, dragon bones decay too rapidly for preservation.) Despite the geopolitical complications, Isabella naturally organizes an expedition to investigate. What eventuates is, omitting plot spoilers, an adventure that is part exploration, part dragonology, part political conundrum, narrated with all the charm, verve, and methodological rigor as previous volumes, that will tax Isabella physically and mentally as never before. There are a few caveats. Isabella dominates to such an extent that other familiar characters make only brief appearances, while new ones seem more archetypes than individuals. And the central mystery here has been touched upon in preceding volumes, so will come as no great surprise to existing fans. Still, it’s a thoroughly absorbing conclusion to this refreshingly different and consistently intriguing pentalogy.
Catch them all. Don’t start here.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7765-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by TJ Klune ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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