An up-all-night read that’s clever and heartfelt.
In this YA fantasy debut, three siblings find themselves ensnared in a plot by demons to rule the world.
Seven years ago, Jon, Kelly, and Travis Bishop were out driving at night with their parents when their minivan suddenly crashed. Despite the efforts of Jon—age 10—and a few strangers, the children’s parents died. Now Jon is a high school junior, Kelly is 13, and Travis is 10. After seven years apart in various homes, the siblings have reunited under the care of Chris and Angie McCormick of Chantilly, Virginia. One day, the kids venture to Crystal Creek Park with Chris and local teachers Anton Edwards and Mark Parrish to explore Pandora’s Cave. As Kelly films the natural splendors with a camcorder, the group experiences a cave-in. Next, they stumble upon a horde of demons gathered before a stage. A human businessman then addresses the creatures, promising them a way to supplant humanity on the surface world. Soon, the demons discover the explorers and chase after them. Kelly, Travis, and Dr. Parrish escape—while the others wait for a rescue team. Eventually, the rescuers exit the cave, stating that they are fine and repeating the mantra that they “must work hard and fast.” Jon emerges at last—but now speaks with a perfect British accent. Author Gemmill has supercharged his YA debut with a tantalizing dose of oddness. Even before meeting the Demon Nation, readers learn that Kelly can read minds, Travis can feel others’ emotions, and Jon is a practicing swordsman. After leaving Pandora’s Cave, the mysterious “head injuries” that Chris and Jon suffer lead to erratic behavior: Chris holes up in the basement to create a secret “product” while Jon trains himself as a magician. Amid all this, Gemmill inserts some great science tidbits, like the cavern flowers created by a “trace amount of limestone in every [water] drop.” Later, heroine Kelly offers the sinister claim that with her telepathy, nobody could stop her from becoming president. Overall, Gemmill toys with his audience in truly subtle ways.
An up-all-night read that’s clever and heartfelt.Pub Date: July 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-44883-0
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Cottingham-McMasters Publishing House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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