A supernatural sequel that echoes the best and worst aspects of its predecessor.
In this second installment of Ashman’s (Black Hollow, 2012) dark fantasy saga, the evil Wizard remains trapped in Black Hollow—but that doesn’t mean that all’s well in this magical world.
In the series’ first novella, unlikely heroine Jessica Bannerly came through a portal into the fantastical world of the Silver Glade only to discover that her arrival could mean the possible return of the Wizard, the land’s former overlord. He sought to sacrifice Jessica in order to break the spells that kept him confined to his cavernous prison for all eternity. However, Jessica was killed by demonic rats, which foiled the Wizard’s plan. At the start of this book, he remains imprisoned and uses his powers to try to lure someone else with Jessica’s blood to his lair—her older brother, Justin. The Wizard uses a magical mental connection to force Jessica’s best friend, a newly turned werewolf named Ciara, to deliver Justin into his clutches. Ciara, who mourns the loss of both Jessica and her own brother, is in a weakened emotional state and thus susceptible to the Wizard’s charms. However, when she develops romantic feelings for Justin, things grow more complicated. Throw in a fairy priestess, a group of unicorn guardians, a shape-shifting vampire girl and a gargoyle—not to mention a few dragons—and readers may easily become overwhelmed by the story. This imaginative sequel shares the same primary weakness as the first brief installment: It packs a little too much into too few pages. However, Ashman again creates a magical atmosphere that’s dark and disturbing, like M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Village crossed with The Lord of the Rings series, with an extra dose of gore (“All around, werewolves pounced…filling the air with the loud cracks of dying Fairies”). Readers will likely want to bask in the creepiness instead of simply trying to keep track of what’s going on.
A supernatural sequel that echoes the best and worst aspects of its predecessor.Pub Date: March 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483615622
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2014
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
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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