An immersive, war-torn fantasy adventure.
Three soldiers navigate a war-torn continent in this omnibus edition of the first three novels in Brandt’s high fantasy series.
The Emperor of the Twelve Kingdoms has decided to step down, leaving a power vacuum as the dozen kings beneath him vie to replace him as the overlord of the massive empire. Prince Nico’s father, King Hermann of Akenberg, is perhaps the most ambitious of all. He sends Nico—who has always cared more about his swordsmanship than politics—on a diplomatic trip to Asturia, a neighboring kingdom, only to betray that kingdom during Nico’s mission, assuming the foreign king will kill his son. Meanwhile, Private Yohan serves as a grunt in the Vilnian army, assigned to guard a remote mountain watchtower. After a surprise attack that kills most of the garrison, Yohan escapes with his wounded commander, Jenaleve—the beautiful eldest daughter of the king of Vilnia. In the hinterlands of the far-northern kingdom of Falkenreach, the housethrall, Jak, lives to serve the village clerk—but when an army of evil creatures destroys his village, he must step up to lead rather than follow. As these three men from varied backgrounds find their lives upended by the empire’s collapse into civil war, they are forced to either rise to the occasion or lose themselves—and their kingdoms—to an unspeakable evil. Brandt writes in sturdy yet flexible prose that captures the drama of his high fantasy tale, particularly the terror of armies swarming over the horizon: “Then he saw it, coming from above directly toward the village. Not an it—them. Shadows in the impenetrable darkness. What had seemed one enormous amorphous thing now resolved into hundreds, if not thousands, of man-sized shapes.” It takes a while for the three strands of the narrative to come together, but the world Brandt creates is rich enough to ensure the reader is happy to spend time in any part of it. The tropes may be familiar, but they are executed with aplomb. Fans of George R. R. Martin and his imitators will enjoy this brutal saga.
An immersive, war-torn fantasy adventure.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2019
ISBN: 9781691712359
Page Count: 740
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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