An often gripping, colorfully written fantasy quest.
Estee’s debut fantasy novel takes a young prince on a quest to rescue his friend and mentor from his evil captors.
Baelath, a young River Elf prince of Blaonir—one of many lands in the world of Arcane—lives a carefree life exploring and hunting with Evelyn, his closest friend. Unbeknownst to Baelath, his world is under attack by dark forces. When he learns that his friend and mentor, Jord, was captured and the king—Baelath’s father—will not rescue him, Baelath decides to rescue Jord himself. For many years, the world was without major conflict, but Jord’s capture and evil Dark Elves leader Fensalir’s rise now herald a rising evil. Fortunately, Jord was able to send a message by humming to birds and plants, who spread his message after his capture: “Prisoner of the Dark Elves must be set free before it is too late. Come, my old friend.” Baelath is joined by Evelyn and later by two human brothers, farmers Jax and Max. After facing terrible dangers, they’re joined by a dwarf named Grul the Berserker from Steelhold. Together, they enter the Valley of Darkness where “evil things dwell…things that feed off fear and prosper in the dark,” according to Grul. More dangers await before they reach their goal. Estee’s story is filled with vivid description and imagery as he draws readers into the lands of Arcane: “The sun’s rays started slicing through the white clouds…shining down upon the obsidian stone that soaked in the sunlight.” The city of Mellom Elvene, where Baelath is from, is shown to be full of life as it “slowly bustled with activity, from doors banging as the shops opened, to the whoosh of the blacksmith’s fires heating up, and the grumbles of the guards coming off the night shift and the ones taking over.” The prologue and epilogue aren’t superfluous, instead providing critical story details, and the cliffhanger ending is sure to entice readers to pick up the next book in the trilogy, which promises more danger and destruction to come.
An often gripping, colorfully written fantasy quest.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2022
ISBN: 9781665573726
Page Count: 214
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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