An unexpectedly compelling lone wolf narrative in a Western-flavored fantasy world.
An ex-soldier battles small-town corruption and an ancient evil in Brantingham’s debut fantasy novel.
Once Capt. Sean Fitzpatrick was the loyal guard to Dwyer, King of Easthorn Castle. When Easthorn falls to the invading King Keodan, Sean expects to die defending Dwyer. Instead, Keodan himself spares him, though his wife and child are slaughtered in the rampage. Grieving and homeless, Sean stumbles into the small town of Skoagy, with only the legendary Vathiriel Blade at his side. Sean wants nothing more than to find peace, but fate has other plans. He quickly crosses paths with Phireol Cook, saloon owner and Skoagy’s self-appointed sheriff. Cook has made a profitable business of crookery and threats, and he doesn’t like the look of the mysterious stranger. His suspicions are confirmed when Sean decides to help a family struggling to make loan payments to Cook, interfering with his meticulous web of coercion. Soon Cook hatches a plan to be rid of Sean once and for all. But Sean has other ideas, including a quest to slay the sinister Watcher in the forest and retrieve its treasure for the good of the town. Brantingham’s prose moves quickly, generating constant tension, and multiple battle scenes, with their blood spatter and plunging knives, further raise the stakes. Much of the plot follows the a-stranger-rides-into-town narrative more closely associated with Clint Eastwood films than fantasy novels, right down to the saloon, the prostitutes, the corrupt sheriff, and the sniveling cowards who assist him. In some aspects, it’s unavoidably formulaic (one wishes for more complex representations of the female characters, whose roles are largely limited to wife, mother, bride, or whore), but the Western style also helps to ground Sean’s quest and adds welcome verve to the fantasy premise. Sean is the essence of a stoic hero whose suffering is neither touted nor glossed over. Ultimately, the unusual genre mashup and crisp prose make this novel a fun read.
An unexpectedly compelling lone wolf narrative in a Western-flavored fantasy world.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5233-4674-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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