Aspires to paint-by-numbers quest fantasy but falls short even of that
This trilogy conclusion sends a girl warrior all over fantasyland, a trail of bodies behind her.
Alas, the shoddy worldbuilding and B-movie plotting of the first two books carry over here. When the robed villain Manu de Reich os Deos—"The Right Hand of God," he claims—attacks Alexa and King Damian in the throne room, Alexa can wait no longer. Though she's a member of Damian's personal guard and his affianced bride, she can think of no better plan than disobeying her king's order: she hares off after captured Rylan (ostensibly her second love interest). She travels through a fantasyland packed with flora and fauna from South America and Asia and whose cities have African names. In the nation of Dansii, Alexa is taken captive and becomes the prisoner of King Armando, the blue-eyed maniac who rules his people with a potent combination of mad science and black sorcery. With Alexa's unwilling help, he intends to conquer the world, for he's convinced that her blood holds a powerful magic. Alexa will never survive without the parade of men and women who sacrifice themselves to help her return to Damian. She must fight after unbelievable physical suffering: days of being bled with primitive syringes while deprived of sufficient food and water on a brutally hot desert journey. A deus ex machina conclusion leaves all that sacrifice seeming sadly pointless.
Aspires to paint-by-numbers quest fantasy but falls short even of that . (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-64490-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Plenty of sword work and old-style action-adventure, with the occasional clever spin.
Fourteen swashbuckling new adventures extend the exploits of John Carter and his descendants on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ version of the Red Planet.
Poised to catch any wave of interest (or at least publicity) that may come along with the release of the film John Carter, the collection features the eponymous Civil War vet and other characters from the original series facing a typical array of multi-legged monsters, multi-armed warriors, defeated adversaries rising again and weird remnants of ancient science. Highlights include: Tarzan walk-ons in stories by Peter S. Beagle and S.M. Stirling; an account of a drunken thoat-lifting contest in Garth Nix’s hilarious “Sidekick of Mars” that somehow never made it into the canon; a tale from Chris Claremont that transplants Carter, Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkas to Jasoom (Earth); and the valedictory “Death Song of Dwar Guntha,” (Jonathan Maberry) about one last great battle before planet-wide peace breaks out. Written in prose that evokes the sweep of the originals (“And as the moons sailed through the black ocean of the sky, John Carter, Warlord of all Barsoom, sang of the last charge of the great Free Riders. And such a tale it was….”) and with a full page image of a well-armed (in more ways than one), often scantily clad figure in each, these pay fitting tribute to a gifted pulp writer.
Plenty of sword work and old-style action-adventure, with the occasional clever spin. (foreword by Tamora Pierce, story introductions, author bios, Barsoomian Gazetteer) (Science fiction short stories. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2029-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A broadly appealing mix of the tragic and droll, comforting, disturbing, exotic and universal, with nary a clinker in the...
A big but consistently engaging pro bono anthology of authors with direct or indirect Japanese “heritage or experience.”
The 36 tales (all but six of which are new) were gathered as contributions to the relief effort for victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. They feature Japanese—or, frequently, haafu, half-Japanese—teenagers engaged in the business of growing up. Two stories are set in the past: a Pearl Harbor episode from Graham Salisbury and Mariko Nagai’s probing free-verse view of the prejudice and internment faced by Japanese Americans shortly thereafter. Otherwise nearly all of the stories have contemporary settings. Only one story refers directly to the 2011 disaster; in the rest, situations and experiences blend familiar tropes with some that may be new to U.S. audiences. Some concern making or missing friends and coping with bullies or demanding parents. Others find their characters reading absorbing cellphone mini-novels on a long commute to school or finding common ground through dance and kendo as well as baseball. Fantasy also makes a strong showing in tales of dragons and eerie samurai dolls, a supernatural Lost Property Office, a magic toaster that predicts the manner of one’s death and more. The closing capsule bios will be particularly helpful to young readers on this side of the Pacific.
A broadly appealing mix of the tragic and droll, comforting, disturbing, exotic and universal, with nary a clinker in the bunch. (glossary) (Short stories. 11-13)Pub Date: March 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61172-006-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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