Outstanding finale to a brilliant series.
Triumphant conclusion to The Crucible historical fantasy trilogy (The Nameless Day, 2005, etc.) in which 14th-century Europeans struggle to secure the right of free will from the angelic and demonic forces that battle for their souls.
Former priest Thomas Neville is a servant of the Archangel Michael, charged to find and expose the demons that live among men. Hal Bolingbroke is now King of England, having deposed and murdered King Richard with the help of Neville. Neville and Bolingbroke were once friends, but after a series of betrayals, Neville is convinced Hal is in fact a demon and thus an enemy of God. Neville fears Hal will use his newfound political power to enslave mankind. But what Neville thinks he knows about the nature of angels and demons may not be true after all, and his soul will serve as the final battleground for the fate of humanity. The concept of angels and demons meddling in human affairs is nothing new, but Douglass puts a terrific spin on those familiar tropes and makes them feel fresh. The liberties taken with Christian mythology will likely offend some, but that the narrative takes chances and challenges what we know is part of what makes the storyline compelling. The prose is lucid and the characters fully realized, making for an enjoyable read.
Outstanding finale to a brilliant series.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-30364-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2005
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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