On balance, a decent wrap-up.
The final volume in a high fantasy trilogy (The Reluctant Queen, 2017, etc.) set on a continent where all the powers of nature are tied to vicious elemental spirits controlled by queens.
In the previous installment, ruthless, ambitious Queen Merecot of Semo sought to find a place for her excess spirits by conquering Aratay, the country co-ruled by her former schoolmate Queen Daleina. After Merecot’s defeat, Semo is still swarming with too many spirits, whose urge to harm and destroy might tear the country apart. Now, Merecot has kidnapped the children of Aratay’s second queen, the more powerful Queen Naelin, whose grief and fury devastate Aratay before she can get her emotion-fueled magic under control. But Merecot’s plan extends beyond simply taking over Aratay to save Semo. It is a scheme that stretches back to the world’s flawed creation and may forever end the threat the spirits pose to all of Renthia…if Naelin and Daleina agree to participate. It is also a scheme that doesn’t make a lot of sense, because if it succeeds, it seems likely to rob Merecot of the magical power that she loves so much and requires in order to maintain her rule. That issue aside, the book offers a reasonably satisfying resolution to the trilogy while still leaving the door open for new books in Renthia (which, according to the acknowledgments, is exactly what the author plans to write). Perhaps that will also provide opportunities for the more interesting minor characters in the story, such as the sociopathic poisoner Garnah, to take center stage. Other characters, particularly Cajara, a shy young candidate for queen, are never fully developed despite the key roles they play in the plot. But at least Merecot gets exactly what she deserves for her presumption.
On balance, a decent wrap-up.Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-241338-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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