Overlong and rough around the edges but still promising.
In this debut novel, specially trained operatives called Sweepers are the only thing standing in the way of creatures that devour magic—and humans.
Twenty-year-old Laura Kramer is the frequently exasperated apprentice (of only a few months) to the perennially cranky Clae Sinclair, one of the few Sweepers left on the island city of Amicae in the Orien Territories. Their job is to eradicate the infestations of monsters that result from broken magic amulets, which are used for many things, including electricity among the city’s elite, and require regular upkeep. The city’s propaganda campaign has convinced its populace that infestations are (mostly) a thing of the past, but Clae and Laura know better, and it’s up to them to keep people safe from the slimy creatures that propagate from broken magic, because once an infestation grows out of control, it’s a nasty business indeed. Laura, Clae, and a newly added apprentice, Okane, a shy Magi they liberate as “payment” from a wealthy and haughty businessman and his wife, must not only wrangle with monsters of the supernatural kind, but also mobsters and rival Sweepers. The magic system is fascinating, but the worldbuilding can be confusing: a mix of seemingly late-19th or early-20th-century industrialization with a fashion sense right out of the late 1800s ("bloomer dresses" for women are all the rage, and " 'lady trousers' weren't extremely popular"), while there are cable cars and vehicles suited to the 1930s. But, luckily, a lengthy history lesson at the midpoint will answer many readers' questions. Citizens are divided into Quarters based on social class, and it’s pretty faithfully adhered to, although Laura, who lives with her aunt Morgan and Morgan’s young daughter, Cheryl, takes great pride in bucking the system in not only how she dresses, but also in her delightful refusal to present herself as purely marriageable property. Bolender has plenty of opportunity to put a romantic interest in Laura’s path but resists this and instead lets the inquisitive Laura find her own way; Laura and Clae provide plenty of chemistry of the nonromantic kind, and there's even humor, such as Laura’s fruitless efforts to suss out Clae’s true age.
Overlong and rough around the edges but still promising.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-16927-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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