Epic, Wagnerian space opera that perhaps might have benefited from a few more liner notes.
In an SF–fantasy debut, adventurers, pirates, villains, hunters, and fugitives careen around a galaxy in search of powerful ancient artifacts.
Digman and Roddy, a husband-and-wife writing team, make their debut with a robust but complicated combination of science fiction and high fantasy, in which crumbling castles and dragons and wraiths share the stage with ray guns and spaceships. It takes place in the aftermath of a traumatic, galaxy-rending war between a pantheon of gods and entities of primordial evil called the Qur Noc. Now, rival space-going human kingdoms, uneasily at peace, scheme and skirmish using faster-than-light ships and “T-Gate” transport points—alien technology that mankind doesn’t even fully comprehend. However, these struggles merely provide background as potentially cosmos-shattering events happen in secret and on off-limits or outlaw worlds. Fall Arden, a freelance Ranger with a mystical sword and an automated quiver of multifunctional arrows, is one of several relentless characters taking part in a violent quest for ancient artifacts, which include a crystalline World Shard and a glyph that can tap into forbidden, ancient power. Another quester is Sidna, an “arcanist” or sorceress who’s one of a tribe of mages that defy the widespread, violent religion of Elcos. A Darth Vader–like Elcosian named Tieger, a fanatic in powered armor, serves aboard the fearsome dreadnaught Forge, and Ban Morgan is a soldier in one of the competing empires who took the blame for an atrocity committed by a prince in his squad and wants to redeem himself. There are also space pirates, a shape-shifting robot, an alien “voidstrider,” and other players. The various members of the ensemble cross paths, often violently, on doomed starships, in pocket universes, and in death-haunted temples.
Fantasy fans will easily recognize and savor the novel’s echoes of, tributes to, and occasional quotations from the Lord of the Rings series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the His Dark Materials books, H.P. Lovecraft’s works, TV’s Babylon 5, and, of course, all things George Lucas. However, the tale doesn’t feel as derivative as other contemporary SF–fantasy fare thanks to its narrative assurance, its ability to set up characters on a mythic scale, and its tendency to keep key details tantalizingly opaque. Hermes, a shape-shifting “artificial lifeform” of obscure origins who accompanies Fall, serves as a literal deus ex machina; he gets the protagonists out of seemingly hopeless jams, much as R2-D2 and Gandalf did in works that provided the novel’s inspiration. Some readers may wonder at the fact that major characters take incredible physical punishments and easily bounce back from grievous wounds while armies of ill-fated extras are summarily ripped asunder by bullets, blades, beams, or ravenous monsters. However, the action rarely stops, the mayhem is vividly rendered, and readers are treated to multiple plot twists and cliffhangers over the course of the book. Readers should be prepared to memorize a lot of names and Dungeons & Dragons–style esoterica, though; judging from closing pages, there may well be a sequel.
Epic, Wagnerian space opera that perhaps might have benefited from a few more liner notes.Pub Date: July 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73426-142-4
Page Count: 519
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
Prepare yourself for the long haul. This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.
Magic, dragons, and prophecy are welcome threads in a fantasy that extols the power of motherhood, friendship, and self-love to change the world.
This prequel to Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019) has a similar scope to that 800-page fantasy, but dragon lore is less important here than the stories of people and events that become catalysts for The Priory's tale. Each chapter is grounded by a cardinal direction, lest you lose your bearings, with the four corners of the world home to central characters whom readers will get to know intimately. In the West lives Glorian, heir to the queendom of Inys. Her rule is based on the sacred Berethnet bloodline, whose power originates from the knight Galian Berethnet's banishing of the Nameless One, a giant fire-breathing wyrm birthed from the world’s core. In the East, Dumai lives on a mountain peak and trains as a godsinger, someone who harbors a human connection to the dragons the East worship as gods. In the South, Tunuva is a warrior of the Priory, a sisterhood that worships the Mother who is seen as the true banisher of the Nameless One. Their beliefs are so different and their societies so distanced that they don't know of the others' existence. And yet, when the balance of nature starts to waver, bringing whispers of new fire-breathing threats like the Nameless One, these women find themselves united by a common cause to save their people and seek truth about the higher powers at war with one another. This story is epic in scope, but its density is the sort that pulls you in. The biggest pull comes from the humanity displayed by the central characters, whose hearts ache for their children and their futures in a world fraught with turmoil. The fire-breathers bring more than destruction in their wake; they also bring a plaguelike sickness that will elicit sharp parallels to the Covid-19 pandemic. The very real struggles these characters face, whether they ride dragons or bear the suffocating rules of monarchy, make this a consuming read. While some fantasy tropes feel like they've only been added to the story's surface, the pages keep turning because of the heart-wrenching reasons that characters are driven to action. The heroes shine in their uniqueness, with diverse family dynamics interwoven throughout and representation ranging from queer lords and warriors to genderfluid alchemists. This prequel stands on its own, but a word of warning to people who have read The Priory: You'll want to reread it in order to benefit from the deeper knowledge of what came before.
Prepare yourself for the long haul. This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63557-792-1
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
