A complex but highly imaginative fantasy tale.
This companion novel to a YA series tells the story of a mother and son caught up in a shadow war.
The “Sword of Kaigen” is the poetic sobriquet of the Kusanagi Peninsula, whose renowned warriors have long been the most respected in the Kaigenese Empire. The Matsudas are the peninsula’s most eminent warrior family, possessing inherited magic skills and boasting a long line of heroes who have defended the empire from foreign enemies. Fourteen-year-old Mamoru represents the next generation of the Matsuda clan, and he is already an accomplished student at the elite Kumono Academy. But a new student, Kwang Chul-hee, transfers from outside of the province and informs Mamoru that most of what he and his friends are being taught in school is propaganda. Mamoru is at first offended by Kwang’s claim—that the Kaigenese Empire flatters and lies to the provincial Kusanagi in order to use them as cannon fodder in their wars—but what if he isn’t lying? Mamoru goes to his mother, Misaki, to ask her about these things. She was once an accomplished warrior in her own right, though she put that life aside in order to marry into the Matsuda family and provide it with young sons. When she tacitly confirms Kwang’s claims, Mamoru can’t help but act rashly. And when Misaki receives a letter from her past warning that the entire Kusanagi Peninsula is in danger, she may be pulled back into the warrior’s lifestyle that she was forced to give up. Wang’s (Theonite: Orbit, 2017, etc.) novel mixes sci-fi technology with the martial arts lore of East Asia to create a fantasy realm that is intricate and original. When Kwang puts on the school uniform for the first time, he says (winkingly): “I feel like I’m in one of those old samurai movies.…It’s like I stepped through a portal back in time.” The book’s mythology is dense and takes some getting used to—readers familiar with the author’s previous Theonite volumes will likely have an easier time—but this inventive story of a warrior family is self-contained enough to be enjoyed on its own.
A complex but highly imaginative fantasy tale.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 558
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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