Antiheroes carry the day—and maybe save it—in this dark tale of pragmatism and survival.
Five strangers form a tense alliance to stop the release of two gods bound centuries ago in Dunne's debut novel, a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel (2014).
Long ago, the creator gods hurled their twin children into the bowels of the Earth—justified punishment for ambitious pride, as most of the world believes, or a cruel sentence passed by insecure parents fearful of their own creations, according to the preachers of the Night. Joros, a violent and ruthless priest, has devoted his life to the release of the bound Twins, but resentment drives him to turn against his former colleagues, bringing with him Anddyr, a powerful mage chained to him by drug addiction and emotional abuse. In the bitter north, a boy named Scal grows into a fearsome but lonely warrior—but the creator gods have plans of their own for him, revealed through a scarred, oracular priestess with a temper. As Scal grows, so do Rora and Aro, twins who have survived the odds, and the death sentence leveled against all twins, by hiding in the underworld. Their paths are disparate, but they alone can stop the terrible threat of the gods at war, for these gods are not good or evil but rather demanding and alien forces who would battle without caring about the human cost. If there is goodness to be found here, it is in small, vulnerable moments: sharing a coat against the cold, singing to help another sleep. Dunne takes some time to unite the cast, resulting in a plot that only comes together in the third act (and which relies on a MacGuffin quest). All the same, the gritty mythos and conflicted characters are compelling enough to bring the reader along to the last page...and to the coming sequel.
Antiheroes carry the day—and maybe save it—in this dark tale of pragmatism and survival.Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242813-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.
Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.
The world’s not big enough for two wizards, as Tolkien taught us—even if that world is the shiny, modern one of the late 19th century, with its streetcars and electric lights and newfangled horseless carriages. Yet, as first-time novelist Morgenstern imagines it, two wizards there are, if likely possessed of more legerdemain than true conjuring powers, and these two are jealous of their turf. It stands to reason, the laws of the universe working thus, that their children would meet and, rather than continue the feud into a new generation, would instead fall in love. Call it Romeo and Juliet for the Gilded Age, save that Morgenstern has her eye on a different Shakespearean text, The Tempest; says a fellow called Prospero to young magician Celia of the name her mother gave her, “She should have named you Miranda...I suppose she was not clever enough to think of it.” Celia is clever, however, a born magician, and eventually a big hit at the Circus of Dreams, which operates, naturally, only at night and has a slightly sinister air about it. But what would you expect of a yarn one of whose chief setting-things-into-action characters is known as “the man in the grey suit”? Morgenstern treads into Harry Potter territory, but though the chief audience for both Rowling and this tale will probably comprise of teenage girls, there are only superficial genre similarities. True, Celia’s magical powers grow, and the ordinary presto-change-o stuff gains potency—and, happily, surrealistic value. Finally, though, all the magic has deadly consequence, and it is then that the tale begins to take on the contours of a dark thriller, all told in a confident voice that is often quite poetic, as when the man in the grey suit tells us, “There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.”
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-53463-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Gwynne’s effort pales in comparison to George R.R. Martin’s gold-standard work, but it’s nothing bad; the story grinds to a...
A middling Middle Earth–ish extravaganza with all the usual thrills, chills, spills and frills.
All modern fantasy begins with J.R.R. Tolkien, and Tolkien begins with the Icelandic sagas and the Mabinogion. Debut author Gwynne’s overstuffed but slow-moving contribution to the genre—the first in a series, of course—wears the latter source on its sleeve: “Fionn ap Toin, Marrock ben Rhagor, why do you come here on this first day of the Birth Moon?” Why, indeed? Well, therein hangs the tale. The protagonist is a 14-year-old commoner named Corban, son of a swineherd, who, as happens in such things, turns out to be more resourceful than his porcine-production background might suggest. There are bad doings afoot in Tintagel—beg pardon, the Banished Lands—where nobles plot against nobles even as there are stirrings of renewed titanomachia, that war between giants and humans having given the place some of its gloominess. There’s treachery aplenty, peppered with odd episodes inspired by other sources, such as an Androcles-and-lion moment in which Corban rescues a fierce wolven (“rarely seen here, preferring the south of Ardan, regions of deep forest and sweeping moors, where the auroch herds roamed”). It’s a good move: You never can tell when a wolven ally will come in handy, especially when there are wyrms around.
Gwynne’s effort pales in comparison to George R.R. Martin’s gold-standard work, but it’s nothing bad; the story grinds to a halt at points, but at others, there’s plenty of action.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-39973-9
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
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