A vividly descriptive and shockingly brutal fantasy story that leaves readers hanging.
In Beckman’s debut novel, a 1940s Englishman undergoes a profound transformation after he’s imprisoned in a bizarre subterranean maze.
As this dark fantasy begins, writer and editor Brian Renwick is spirited away from 1947 London to a bleak underground domain, where he becomes the property of the seemingly all-powerful “Uncle,” ruler of the Iron Labyrinth, where his minions mine and forge pyrite. Brian painfully learns that Uncle wields absolute control, requiring obedience of mind, body, and soul of his prisoners. As Uncle tells him, “I want you exquisitely alive to my demands. I want you [to] try to discover a new heartbeat, one that pulses for me alone.” Uncle’s punishments for lapses are savage, but the grievously injured and dismembered are healed by a magical blue light, andthe dead are resurrected. Despite the grindingly hard work, Brian’s strength grows through gladiator-style training sessions, fraught but mind-expanding interviews with Uncle, and other otherworldly encounters. The prisoner has all but accepted that Uncle is breaking him down in order to forge him into a weapon for an unnamed purpose—until a shattering betrayal occurs. This is an overly ambitious but wildly imaginative tale. The prose is often vivid, as when Brian climbs up a tower, “driven by a force he could neither mollify nor stop,” and many scenes are striking.The story’s sadomasochistic dynamic is disturbingly effective but not for the faint of heart; it encompasses bestial sex and, in one case, a horrific rape on a lakeshore. There’s also an overabundance of fantastical plot points that make for a bumpy read, including manifestations of the biblical Tree of Life and the Goddess of Pyrite; shape-shifting; extraterrestrial royalty; dimension- and time-hopping; amnesia; and cryptic utterances from seen and unseen entities. Too many unanswered questions distract: What is Roche Brooks, Brian’s best friend back in London, being groomed for? Is Uncle connected to Brian’s lonely childhood? Why are Uncle’s minions being trained in ancient fighting techniques? What is the Uncle-defying power that lurks in the labyrinth’s ominous mist? A sequel, however, might offer answers to these question.
A vividly descriptive and shockingly brutal fantasy story that leaves readers hanging.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5320-8901-5
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Iuniverse Inc
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.
When you deal with the darkness, everything has a price.
“Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Adeline tried to heed this warning, but she was desperate to escape a wedding she didn’t want and a life spent trapped in a small town. So desperate that she didn’t notice the sun going down. And so she made a deal: For freedom, and time, she will surrender her soul when she no longer wants to live. But freedom came at a cost. Adeline didn’t want to belong to anyone; now she is forgotten every time she slips out of sight. She has spent 300 years living like a ghost, unable even to speak her own name. She has affairs with both men and women, but she can never have a comfortable intimacy built over time—only the giddy rush of a first meeting, over and over again. So when she meets a boy who, impossibly, remembers her, she can’t walk away. What Addie doesn’t know is why Henry is the first person in 300 years who can remember her. Or why Henry finds her as compelling as she finds him. And, of course, she doesn’t know how the devil she made a deal with will react if he learns that the rules of their 300-year-long game have changed. This spellbinding story unspools in multiple timelines as Addie moves through history, learning the rules of her curse and the whims of her captor. Meanwhile, both Addie and the reader get to know Henry and understand what sets him apart. This is the kind of book you stay up all night reading—rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted.
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8756-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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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