An intellectually robust fantasy that explores the potential in tragedy.
In this debut novel, a man cares for an infant humanoid lizard despite the hatred between the two species.
In the land of Enkratis, the Semuyan are humanoid lizards who live in villages adjacent to larger, more successful human settlements. After much war, peace reigns thanks to a year-old treaty. In the swamp of Vrock, Vulcan and Valeet raise a lone hatchling from a failed clutch. Dwindling resources require that the Semuyan attempt to ally themselves with the humans living to the north. In that settlement, called Westgrove, is a man named Xavier. When he sees Semuyan scouting near his land, he assumes the worst. Westgrove’s leaders decide to enlist the aid of an Anakite, a supposedly mythical giant twice the height of a man. The giant—along with 50 of its own warriors and some Westgrove men—heads to Vrock. The resulting slaughter leaves a single Semuyan alive. When Journeyman Teleth Lysander investigates the carnage, he finds the infant in hiding. In the capital city of Azimuth, the men of the Grand Assembly order Teleth to bring the child to the Semuyan king and sue for continued peace despite the slaughter in both Vrock and Westgrove. Can he survive the encounter and follow up his hunch that a third party has sown chaos between humans and Semuyan? In this carefully plotted fantasy, Winslow illustrates a semicivilized ancient world where kindness and tolerance are prized commodities. Xavier, for example, says of an attack on the Semuyan: “This is not an act of war, it is one of cleansing and preservation.” A quarter through the narrative, the author’s devastating philosophical thrust hits as Teleth speaks with a fellow Journeyman. “You say that all the lizard folk should die,” he replies. “But who is to say that all mankind doesn’t deserve to die as well?” In Enkratis, the violence has meaning, and Winslow boldly presents parallels with the modern world, like religious hypocrisy. The adventures of Teleth and Vankor, as the child is named, unfurl to the very end with both enchantment and foreboding.
An intellectually robust fantasy that explores the potential in tragedy.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5792-6
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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