A relentlessly paced and audaciously violent thrill ride through a richly described urban landscape.
In the final volume of Eliott’s Shadow Bidder trilogy, an ambitious assassin must bring together a dangerous team to complete a deadly mission.
The once-glorious city of Sullward, now known as Hell’s Labyrinth, is at a crossroads, as is the entire Tergonian Empire. High Lord Ulan Gueritus, a power-hungry sadist (nicknamed the Raving Blade) prepares to consolidate his allies and bring tyranny to the fallen city, and time is running out for Vazeer the Lash, a killer who was commissioned to assassinate the notorious underworld boss. Vazeer has dreams of rebuilding the coastal locale, which was destroyed centuries earlier in a cataclysm called the Great Storm, and bringing it back to its former cultural grandeur. To accomplish his task of killing the Blade, he’ll need to unite a group of elite criminals, some of whom want Vazeer dead. Complicating matters further are Vazeer’s intimate connections with numerous women, including a former lover, the deadly contract killer Terza Falconbrow; a killer named Shade of Night, who’s preoccupied with having sex with and torturing Vazeer (sometimes simultaneously); and a mysterious woman who could be a legendary actress with an almost mythical reputation. Although the book’s exploration of the complex character dynamics slows the momentum in places, there’s a lot to enjoy about this novel. The worldbuilding is extraordinary, meticulously describing the current fallen city but also giving readers valuable insights into Sullward’s and the Empire’s backstory, particularly through the device of a former empress’ memoir.
Complementing the razor-sharp worldbuilding is the author’s use of varied sensory description, which immerses readers in the dark and dangerous world to create an intimate and intense reading experience: “There was a loud knock on the front door… a sound so concussive it felt like being struck on the side of a metal helmet with a club, and my eyes snapped violently open.” Another noteworthy element is the depth of the writing, which can be likened to a complex narrative tapestry. Throughout the complex characterization and immersive atmospherics, the author weaves in subtle imagery, symbolism, and philosophical components, which give the novel a poetic sheen: “Time is a blade that will claim us all in the end. Before that day comes, let the sharp steel of your own dream razor a pathway to the light.” However, the biggest potential selling point is the offbeat nature of the story as a whole. In a genre that often embraces stereotypical characters and formulaic plotlines, Eliott’s narrative features a cast of original and memorable players, an impressive number of unexpected plot twists, and a conclusion that is as unpredictable as what preceded it. Readers may also find the circular nature of the story—which ends with powerful imagery that calls back to the opening scene—to be perfectly fitting. Ultimately, this trilogy could effectively serve as a prequel of sorts—a foundation to a more expansive story arc, both in terms of scope and theme.
A relentlessly paced and audaciously violent thrill ride through a richly described urban landscape.Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798986706566
Page Count: 518
Publisher: Further Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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