Youthful melodrama without catharsis.
The play's the thing: new fantasy series about a magical theater company, from the author of The Golden Key (1996, etc.).
Part Elf, part Wizard, Cayden Silversun is determined to follow his aptitude and instinct into the theater, despite the snobbish disapproval of his aristocratic mother and the example of his father, who moves in lofty regions at the Royal Court (where he's actually the Royal pimp). Cade knows he and his troupe are exceptionally gifted, and when brash but highly talented young Elf Mieka Windthistle inveigles his way into the company, Cade knows they'll be second to none and could challenge to join the Royal Circuit itself. They are four: Cade, the "tregetour," playwright and director who imbues the glass withies essential to the performance with magic; Jeska the "masquer" plays all the parts; Rafe the "fettler" controls the performance on stage; and Mieka the "glisker" uses his magic to make everything come alive. Though Mieka offers Cade his trust and friendship, Cade can't bring himself to tell the young Elf his dark secret: he foresees possible futures and has the ability to make them come true or turn them aside. But he foresees a horrid future for Mieka and, assuming he can do nothing and should not interfere anyway, Cade says nothing. Finally the company, Touchstone, joins the Winterly Circuit, enjoying long roads, rivalries, bad food, surly innkeepers, all-male audiences, ghastly weather and the attentions of groupies. There are promising ideas, though Rawn doesn't really manage to convey how it all works, together with an insufficiency of plot and little or no real insight. Instead of a grand finale, it just stumbles to a halt.
Youthful melodrama without catharsis.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2362-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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
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