A tight, action-packed fantasy bursting with vigor.
In this sequel, the survivors of a goblin battle continue their journey to a port city where an even greater evil awaits.
A warrior named Ohlen and his companions, who all have special skills, fought a horde of goblins to rescue some captive villagers. Now the six friends, including Arden, Boudreaux, Gnome, Ruprecht, and she-elf X’andria, are desperate for rest to recoup their strength. On their way to the city of Rockmoor, they visit a mystic healer, Magda, to treat Arden’s battle-scarred face. But Magda instead offers a warning, cryptically citing an impending “dark storm” and “evil terror.” Believing his cohorts need time for improving their abilities, Ohlen separates from them. In Rockmoor, the five remaining friends train intensely: Gnome hones his stealth under a master thief’s schooling while X’andria studies magic. Ohlen unfortunately gets a taste of the accursed evil destined to befall the group when a reanimated corpse attacks him. The evil soon makes its presence known to all, as Arden hurries from an unseen pursuer and someone in the band disappears. The seemingly invisible villain wants something specific from Ohlen and company, pitting them against vile creatures, from rat abominations in the sewer to a much more formidable monster. Hinsley’s (Tinder & Flint, 2016) exhilarating fantasy novel is a tireless array of action and atmosphere. Flashbacks, for example, like Gnome’s startling first encounter with magic, are precise without slowing the narrative. The steady momentum is coupled with constant allusions to forthcoming peril, even Boudreaux’s excessive drinking: “With each cup of the dark golden brew, the pointy edges of worry about their current predicament became duller.” Garretsen’s illustrations harmonize with the prose; images give the impression of having been carved onto a black matte, bestowing the “roiling sea” with the ominous “inky blackness” Hinsley aptly details at one point. Each of the six main characters is spotlighted, though the players are at their best—and most entertaining—when the group is assembled. The story ends with a thorough wrap-up and a Book 3 teaser.
A tight, action-packed fantasy bursting with vigor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-387-00368-6
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Envision Arts
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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