High melodrama empowers a cunning tale.
Stackpole sets forth on his new cycle and 34th novel, following the conclusion of the DragonCrown War Cycle (Fortress Draconis, 2001, etc.).
Atlas kicks off with a scene that promises well for the series and is a variation on the Takashi Shimura role as the wise older swordsman of The Seven Samurai. The old swordsman Moraven Tolo, escorting some pilgrims to Moriande, the grandest city in the world, meets three bandits on the very spot where he himself killed three bandits 81 years earlier. He bests the three new ones marvelously, then, rather than kill them, assigns them deeds that will allow them to live. He tells the bandit leader, Payynti, a woman, to go the School of Istor and become a xidantzu for nine years. Will we see her again? The age of black ice that held back discovery has ended and wild magic dimmed. Moriande and its Prince Cyron now depend on the Arturasis, the Royal Cartographers, to lead their ships into uncharted waters. Young Kele Arturasi, engaged to the beauteous but wily Majiata Phoesel, hopes to take her with him on a fresh voyage, but his foxy sister Nirati separates them, and Maj vows revenge. Meanwhile, Moraven’s even older master, Jatan, sends him on a mission to Ixyll, a land warped by wild magic, to save the world. Much political stuff erupts in a babble of odd names that deserve a glossary before the great adventures begin and Kele’s brawling brother Jorim sets sail in Stormwolf to test new cartographical inventions and fill in the blanks on the world map. Grandfather Qiro, chief cartographer, sends Kele off to survey the lost Spice Route, a dangerous job. Moraven, before going on his mission, takes on a student swordsman, Ciras. Ghastly murders take place while Qiro enters alternate worlds, his map coming alive as the invisible cartographer scrawls new routes and lands in blood.
High melodrama empowers a cunning tale.Pub Date: March 8, 2005
ISBN: 0-553-38237-3
Page Count: 462
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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