A brisk, expertly crafted tale that delivers an important, uplifting lesson about the power of music.
In Himeda’s fantasy novel, a young boy embarks on an adventure of a lifetime to apprentice under a Master of Music, and unlocks his own hidden powers along the way.
Eleven-year-old Kaelin loves and fears music with equal measure. He believes that his flute playing was responsible for a concurrent horrific event that occurred when he was younger, so he now only plays in the forest, where no one else can hear him. The boy lives with his older sister on the Bardic Isles, where the Bards fled after coming close to extinction by the hands of the Druids, more than 200 years before. After hearing the visiting Master Bergid play music that Kaelin himself had composed the day before, he follows the musician and asks to become his apprentice. The two make their way to Elegy for the Spring Council, and the Master slowly discovers Kaelin’s extraordinary gift: “If he focused intently on something in the clearing—a rock, leaf, or tree—he could hear its music, wondrous music that seemed to define its very essence.” As Kaelin sets about exploring his unique abilities, he’ll be forced to confront his own past, as well as the music within Elegy’s Bardic Mountain—the power of which threatens to drain him completely. Over the course of this novel, Himeda employs realistic dialogue and a clear, immersive tone that moves the action effortlessly forward as characters develop. She’s creatively crafted a fantasy novel in which magic comes from music itself, which some readers may consider to be a bold move. It’s a decision that pays off well, though, and the author employs clever touches that build upon the musical aspect, such as dividing the book into “movements” made up of individual chapters. Although the worldbuilding is robust throughout, complete with epic backstories, the novel skips lightly toward its emotional conclusion—one that’s satisfying but also leaves things delightfully open-ended for a future installment of the Bardic Isles series.
A brisk, expertly crafted tale that delivers an important, uplifting lesson about the power of music.Pub Date: April 13, 2023
ISBN: 9781959900009
Page Count: 375
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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