Karen is attacked by a group of six or seven girls and the fear and pain seem overwhelming until she suddenly realizes that she is running like a fox, the hounds are baying, and there is no safety no matter how hard she runs. Transformed by her fear into a real fox with a sharp sense of smell, bushy tail, and an animal cleverness new to her, Karen Fox gets help from Mohl, a sheepherder. Meanwhile, at the hospital, her body is in a coma and her grandparents suffer as they wonder if she’ll ever come out of it. The story’s core takes place in the world of Mohl and the fox. Mohl senses that Karen Fox is exceptional, and their alliance grows as he finds his own world of herding sheep suddenly turned topsy-turvy. Stunned and on the run himself, he is wanted for crimes his long-dead father is accused of committing. In this place, somewhat akin to a medieval world with a matriarchal line of succession for the kingdom and a religion emphasizing the supernatural, the outlaws gradually become involved in a rebellion. All the time the clock is ticking as Mohl early on reveals that an arl left in animal shape longer than 24 days will die. With subtlety and style, Browne gradually makes this world complex and intricate, giving Karen a critical role to play as an arl—a creature visiting from another plane of existence. Watching the Queen move from one simultaneously existing level of reality to another provides just that sense of possibility, convincing readers that there is a logic to Karen’s ultimate choice. Karen must decide between returning to her body in our world or staying to help the rebels who have befriended her. Combining shapeshifting with a complexly realized fantasy world in a fast-paced plot, this would make an intriguing contrast to Rubenstein’s Foxspell (1996), which emphasized the experience of morphing. Clever and compelling. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58234-759-X
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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