A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy sequel that should make readers crave yet another visit to Nanosia.
A journeyman, ill-equipped to be the new fire mage, will need strength and skills to save an increasingly unstable world in this second installment of a YA series.
Now that his master is dead, apprentice Loby is the likely candidate to take the role of fire mage. But as he’s never learned the secret of fire, he doesn’t want the responsibility of being one of the five elemental mages. Meanwhile, citizens of the kingdom of Romatica are understandably on edge, as the land is burdened by recurrent earthquakes and unseasonably icy weather. In order for earth mage Myrlo to calm the “distressed” planet, he’ll need to make a volcano—but that would require a fire mage at full power. Loby may find the secret of fire in the atom-sized world of Nanosia, which is populated by the universe’s elementary particles. He’ll also be able to stop Romatica’s despicable King Cestor, who’s in Nanosia to collect the invincible powers an oracle has promised him. Luckily, Loby has help from Prenda, a girl who may share his hankering for romance, as well as Pyck, his half brother, who, after leaving six years ago, has inexplicably returned to Romatica. As in the fantasy series’ first installment, Johnson (Queen of the Quantum Realm, 2017, etc.) aptly incorporates science into her fictional tale. For example, Nanosia resident Higgy (as in the Higgs field), who plans to abandon his duty of providing mass to particles, could destroy the entire universe. But the author is a skilled storyteller in multiple aspects: Pyck is especially mysterious, as readers know he’s in Romatica on some sort of “mission.” Furthermore, some scenes play out twice, with alternating points of view. It masterfully adds character dimension: While Loby is indisputably sympathetic, Pyck’s perspective makes the protagonist’s plea for help almost sound like babbling (“The earthquake, the cold….See there’s this girl”). The narrative’s speedy pace, from the beginning to the satisfying conclusion, never falters.
A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy sequel that should make readers crave yet another visit to Nanosia.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-72288-862-6
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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