by Ryan Hauge Ivy Smoak ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 2018
An addictive adventure with a familiar framework.
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In this YA medieval fantasy, a noble family enjoys peacetime pursuits until history comes knocking.
On the world of Pentavia, in the realm of Treland, the city of Arwin’s Gate is about to host the largest tournament in a decade. Lady Isolda of House Hornbolt fears that it may be a turning point in the lives of three of her children. Terric, almost 13 years old, is destined by custom to join the priesthood—despite his fondness for swordplay. Oriana, 16, is ready for marriage to a noble, possibly even Prince Rixin. Marcus, 18 and the oldest of Isolda and Lord Garrion’s children, will be competing in the tournament against the undefeated prince and others, which could cost him his life. As if Isolda isn’t preoccupied enough, she receives a note from Axion Tobias Crane, Terric’s tutor. She leaves Vulture Keep and secretly meets him at the Razortooth Tavern. Within a sinkhole in the floor, he reveals to her “a yellowed corpse dressed in golden armor.” This is the body of Arwin, the one true God. Does this misplaced holy artifact have anything to do with the rot that House Hornbolt has been suffering since the end of the Wizard’s War almost 20 years ago? In this epic fantasy, Hauge (Riddle of Regicide, 2014) and Smoak (The Truth in My Lies, 2018, etc.) excel at rotating through their cast, using third-person chunks to make several small dramas succeed. While Oriana fears that Prince Rixin won’t like her compared with Princess Navya, Terric plans to run away to the northern Huntlands before priesthood descends. Structurally, the narrative is reminiscent of A Game of Thrones, but with less cynicism and brutality. Delightful surprises lurk around most corners, including the thief Bastian (and his squirrel, Nut), who steals Oriana’s heart. In this first volume of a series, the authors whet fan curiosity for distant locales like Arwood Forest and the Isles of Invention. A savage cliffhanger brings everything into sharper focus for the sequel.
An addictive adventure with a familiar framework.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-985876-05-7
Page Count: 450
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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