An epic, exciting tale of knighthood and vampires.
An epic medieval fantasy chronicling the trials and tribulations of Elysium, a 15th-century kingdom under threat by evil, but protected by the Seaton brothers and their magical claymores.
Packed with all the trappings and tropes of the sword and sorcery genre, this first book in a planned series opens with the standard augur: a child shall be born, and this child shall set the people free. But this tale isn’t myopically focused on a barrel-chested man-child and his blood-spattering adventures—though that doesn’t mean there isn’t any fun. The white-hot first chapter sees a prominent and sinister Bramonian woman seduced, ravished and finally murdered by the mighty Andromin Seaton, one of a trio of brothers who guide the fate of the good kingdom of Elysium. On his retreat from his recon, Andromin encounters a fearsome creature who speaks in opaque riddles and an inflection borrowed from the cutesy-speak of The Lord of the Rings’Gollum. The creature poisons Andromin and hurries off, and it’s in this effectively creepy exchange that the seeds of Alamptria’s chaos are first sewn. In a whirlwind of exposition, the book introduces characters of all moral shades and slyly hints at their significances. Andromin’s brother, Confidus, is the central protagonist, but it’s Andromin’s final revelation about his place in the family that will keep readers burning through the pages until the end. After a regicide whose motives are too byzantine to understand at first, the Seaton brothers, armed with their claymores of power, realize that the Bramonian war was only skirmish in a much larger struggle between the powers of light and dark: Makoor and his vampire cult are on the move. The novel marries the worlds of Tolkien and Stoker in a diction befitting the story’s epic scale, and the mythology is unique enough to get away with it despite a few overwrought moments. However, the sometimes orbital prose does harmonize with the larger-than-life settings and deliciously operatic characters.
An epic, exciting tale of knighthood and vampires.Pub Date: June 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4520-0106-7
Page Count: 424
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
