A memorable and nuanced tale of a world on the brink of violent change, hampered slightly by its deliberate pace.
In Miller’s fantasy novel, a princess find her world turned upside-down as she begins to doubt her society’s views about magic and its practitioners.
Grand Princess Sorrel Zdraevit is one of five children of the emperor of Eisa, a peaceful land where the use of magic is banned. Those who still use it, known as Wielders, have a reputation in the kingdom for being dangerous and causing trouble. As the royal family host a party to celebrate the 300-year reign of the Zdraevit line, tragedy strikes. A misfired firework winds up killing more than 1,000 people and injuring more. The citizenry is outraged, and some people say that the terrible event was no accident at all, but actually the work of Wielders or “magic-Sympathizers.” To make matters worse, when Sorrel and her sister attempt to visit the injured, they face an attack by a Wielder. Partly in response to this, the emperor decides that Eisa will support their allies in a war against Wielders in other countries. Meanwhile, the government draws up a list of possible Wielders in Eisa and their supporters. However, Sorrel begins to wonder if Wielders and their supporters are really as bad as she’s always been told—or if she has more to fear from other people. Miller develops Sorrel’s story steadily throughout the novel. As the narrator, Sorrel tends to use lengthy description to describe what happens to her; when she’s merely tired, for instance, she notes that “I could feel fatigue tugging at my eyelids.” This stylistic choice tends to slow the pace considerably. However, as the plot progresses, it becomes clear that this is not a typical fantasy tale, as there are some brutal twists that draw on similarities between the Zdraevit line and the plight of the real-life Romanovs in Imperial Russia. Sorrel’s tale of self-discovery, with its elements of magic, makes for a refreshingly offbeat addition to the fantasy genre.
A memorable and nuanced tale of a world on the brink of violent change, hampered slightly by its deliberate pace.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798218264864
Page Count: 648
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.
Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.
The world’s not big enough for two wizards, as Tolkien taught us—even if that world is the shiny, modern one of the late 19th century, with its streetcars and electric lights and newfangled horseless carriages. Yet, as first-time novelist Morgenstern imagines it, two wizards there are, if likely possessed of more legerdemain than true conjuring powers, and these two are jealous of their turf. It stands to reason, the laws of the universe working thus, that their children would meet and, rather than continue the feud into a new generation, would instead fall in love. Call it Romeo and Juliet for the Gilded Age, save that Morgenstern has her eye on a different Shakespearean text, The Tempest; says a fellow called Prospero to young magician Celia of the name her mother gave her, “She should have named you Miranda...I suppose she was not clever enough to think of it.” Celia is clever, however, a born magician, and eventually a big hit at the Circus of Dreams, which operates, naturally, only at night and has a slightly sinister air about it. But what would you expect of a yarn one of whose chief setting-things-into-action characters is known as “the man in the grey suit”? Morgenstern treads into Harry Potter territory, but though the chief audience for both Rowling and this tale will probably comprise of teenage girls, there are only superficial genre similarities. True, Celia’s magical powers grow, and the ordinary presto-change-o stuff gains potency—and, happily, surrealistic value. Finally, though, all the magic has deadly consequence, and it is then that the tale begins to take on the contours of a dark thriller, all told in a confident voice that is often quite poetic, as when the man in the grey suit tells us, “There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.”
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-53463-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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