If mostly lacking surprises, still guaranteed to check the boxes for fans of fantasy and horse-riding novels.
This stand-alone fantasy blends classic horse-racing tropes with political fantasy and even a dash of Pokémon.
Those who live in the Becar Empire know that reincarnation exists. Those who are purest become augurs, able to read the past, present, and future of a person's soul; good people are reincarnated as humans; those with more flaws spend their next incarnation as animals; and the irredeemable sinners spend eternity incarnating as kehoks, vicious, mindless, chimerical monsters. Kehoks cannot be tamed, but daring riders can control them mentally through force of will and race them while risking dismemberment and death both from their competitors and their own mounts. Former grand champion–turned–disgraced trainer Tamra Verlas needs a winning kehok-rider pair who will garner her the gold necessary to retain custody of her daughter. Raia hopes that a new life as a rider will allow her to hide from her parents, who have affianced her to a rich but cruelly dominating man. And the metallic lion kehok she learns to race seems to have his own ambitions and intelligence beyond his apparently brutish nature. Meanwhile, Becar roils with uncertainty, because Prince Dar cannot succeed his late older brother, Zarin, as emperor until he locates his predecessor’s current incarnation, even as the neighboring realm of Ranir threatens invasion. Of course, these plot elements dovetail in exactly the way you’d expect, but that doesn’t mean that the race to victory isn’t charmingly crafted and extremely enjoyable. Durst (The Deepest Blue, 2019, etc.) offers her patented mix of solid worldbuilding, characters with determination and heart, and a jab of violence to ensure that the result never cloys. Fans of Tamora Pierce’s strong female protagonists will also appreciate the tribute that Durst pays her in the acknowledgments, the character name “Tamra,” and the storytelling.
If mostly lacking surprises, still guaranteed to check the boxes for fans of fantasy and horse-riding novels.Pub Date: March 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-288861-7
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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