For teens who want the female protagonist to kick ass more than kiss.
Building on the commercially successful manga series created by Hajime Isayama (later adapted into an anime series), this novel offers all-new characters.
Humans have been living behind a walled fortress since grotesque giants, called titans, began attacking villages and making meals out of the human inhabitants. As a member of the nobility, Rosalie Dumarque has never been outside the inner walls that protect those of her status. Because the white 16-year-old only has six more months of freedom before she must marry an older man to boost her family’s wealth, she hopes to make use of her Royal Military Academy training to become a soldier and see the world. In this action-packed story, the unlikely heroine manages to procure the very worst assignment: protecting the walls against titan attacks at the Trost Gate Garrison. From Day 1, Rosalie enters into vividly depicted battles against these beasts. The time in between leaves her opportunities to become closer to squad mates, especially blue-eyed Jax, her commanding sergeant, and to begin questioning her identity as a young woman and what—if anything—she really owes her family. Although the quick, predictable plot builds to a frenetic pace, mysteries surrounding the various titans will keep readers involved up to the conclusion. An open ending leaves room for a series to develop.
For teens who want the female protagonist to kick ass more than kiss. (Fantasy. 13-17)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68369-061-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Grand Conspiracy ($26.00; Jan.; 640 pp.; 0-06-105219-1). Addition to Wurts’s fantasy Wars of Light and Shadow series (Curse of the Mistwraith, 1994, and others not seen). Half-brothers Lysaer, the Lord of Light (he must seek justice whatever the cost) and Arithon, Master of Shadows (he requires forgiveness) slug it out yet again. For non-fans, the main attraction here is Wurts’s gnarled and often unconsciously hilarious prose (“Caught breathless by the speed of the wrestler’s jab that hooked the hinge of his knee and wrenched in a practiced move to fell him, the duke’s brother struck back with locked fists”). Even that, however, palls after a few paragraphs.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-105219-1
Page Count: 640
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
paper 0-15-600601-4 Nebula’s 1997 award-winners and ballot finalists are presented by Willis, who takes over from last year’s editor, Jack Dann. Representing Best Novel, there’s an excerpt from Vonda N. McIntyre’s splendid historical fantasy, The Moon and the Stars, while Jerry Oltion’s ghostly Apollo capsule, “Abandon in Place,” wins Best Novella, and “The Flowers of Aulit Prison,” Nancy Kress’s investigation of crime, society, and reality, has captured Best Novelette. The Best Short Story Award goes to “Sister Emily’s Lightship” from Jane Yolen. Also on show are impressive finalist yarns from James Patrick Kelly, Michael Swanwick, Gregory Feely, James Alan Gardner, and Karen Joy Fowler. The Rhysling Award Winners (for poetry) are W. Gregory Stewart and Terry A. Garey. Nelson Bond, represented by his story “The Bookshop,” has accepted Author Emeritus status (you’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of him). And Poul Anderson, virtuoso of short- and mid-length fiction—his typically brilliant “The Martyr” appears here—thoroughly deserves his Grand Master Award. Nonfiction enthusiasts, however, are in for a thumping disappointment. Maybe somebody decided that last year’s opinionated and thoroughly refreshing growls and hisses Simply Wouldn’t Do. But for whatever reason, 1997’s nonfiction is just anodyne scraps (the redoubtable Kim Stanley Robinson honorably excepted). No obituaries appear, despite the passing of Jerome Bixby (author of several all-time great short stories, plus a couple of the finest Star Trek scripts), of innovative editor/writer Judith Merrill, and of Australia’s greatest (and vastly underrated) SF novelist, George Turner. Even Bill Warren’s eagerly anticipated dissection of the year’s movies has been ditched. Terrific fiction, a Bronx cheer for the nonfiction.
Pub Date: April 29, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-100372-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harvest/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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