A compelling addition to an impressive fantasy series with a strong heroine.
McGarry and Ravipinto (The Fall of Ventaris, 2013, etc.) return to the turbulent city of Rodaas in this third installment of a series.
In gang- and guild-dominated Rodaas, affiliation means everything. Wearing the cloak of the Grey Highway—a society of thieves with influence in all corners of the fantastic city—is perhaps the most desirable association of them all. So thinks Darley, the privileged aristocrat’s daughter, who approaches Grey member Duchess in an attempt to gain an invitation to the order. Darley knows of Duchess’ past—that she, too, was the daughter of an aristocrat, though she has turned her back on that life—and hopes to use their former acquaintance to bend Duchess to her will. Duchess has her own plans, though. Darley’s connections to the city’s scholars may be of benefit to Duchess’ work as well as provide some insight into the recurring dreams from which she has been suffering. But why, wonders Duchess, does a particular scholar, Cecilia Payne—the only female one in the city—want to meet with her? And what is the origin of these rumors swirling through the streets that Duchess is a murderer for hire? Tensions are building in Rodaas: the city’s cults are on the verge of an all-out war, and the empress’ control of the throne is not assured. In a place where so much is based on hearsay and anecdote, Duchess must be very careful what she says—and what she allows to be said about her. “Each is a story,” her mentor warns her while discussing whispered rumors that affected two powerful men. “Each has a tale behind it. Sometimes we know them, and sometimes we only wish we did.” In Rodaas, McGarry and Ravipinto have created a world of profound complexity and intrigue (At one point, Duchess recalls: “Someone once told me of a theory that Rodaas passes through periods of long stagnation punctuated by spasms of change, sometimes violent change”). Readers unfamiliar with the earlier works in the Grey City series will likely feel over their heads, as the nuances of the various castes and factions are deep and difficult to suss out. Those willing to commit themselves to the installments, however, will find their investment paying dividends. This third volume of Duchess’ story is the most knotty, absorbing, and satisfying yet.
A compelling addition to an impressive fantasy series with a strong heroine.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9850149-2-6
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Peccable Productions
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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