A dreamy assortment of tales that contain kernels of worldly truth.
Wilkie presents a collection of seven short stories set in a fantastical realm of magic, danger, and profound lessons.
The common thread weaving through these tales is that they all take place in the imaginary Kingdom of Imlay, a coastal locale where magic and spirits exist alongside humans. Beyond that, each tale is unique in its characters, morals, and adventures. The collection opens with “The River Keeper,” featuring the bright and outspoken child Ya, who reports to her mother, Myranda, that the river dividing Imlay into its northern and southern provinces is cloudy and “sick.” The local Council approves an expedition to follow the waters east to discover the source of its sickness. Myranda leads the exploratory group, but Ya is the true hero when she finds the legendary River Keeper and receives a monumental responsibility that will change her life. In what may be the book’s most haunting offering, “A Dream for a Dream,” children and adults are inexplicably separated from one another: “The Children didn’t know their parents. In fact, they didn’t know what parents were….Every so often, a new Child would appear in their midst. No one questioned this because they had each, in their own turn, appeared in a similar manner.” The children begin having cryptic dreams that may hold the key to where they are and from where they came. “The Day After Tomorrow”is perhaps the book’s most traditional offering: a tale of a king who wishes to see the future in order to prevent disaster and to better rule his kingdom. When a court magician grants his wish, the monarch discovers that there’s a price to be paid for such a gift.
Although the subject matter varies, Wilkie infuses a similar dreamlike feel throughout all seven tales by incorporating elements of the magical alongside the realistic. Often, the reader must wait a bit to encounter the particular magic of a given story, creating a kind of tension that generates momentum. Wilkie’s writing style is simple yet effective, with a slight tendency toward the old-fashioned, as in “The Day After Tomorrow”: “One particular morning in midsummer, the King woke with the dawn bell in a cold sweat and a dreadful premonition.” Each work is accompanied by Alemanno’s occasional black-and-white sketches, adding to the wispy, ethereal tone that permeates the collection. The beliefs expressed are familiar ones, such as the importance of taking care of the earth (in the title story, which may strike readers as reminiscent of some Native American folklore) and the price of greed (“The Pit of Truth,” whose talking animals lend it a particularly mythic feel). Some readers may find the morals to be familiar to the point of being redundant, but they do make the stories feel like fairy tales that have been passed down from one generation to another. Although readers don’t get much time to get to know and love the protagonists, the strength of the narratives lies in their imaginative takes on well-worn lessons.
A dreamy assortment of tales that contain kernels of worldly truth.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798891382022
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Subplot Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 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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