Enough substance to break from the pack; here’s hoping that future volumes pull even farther ahead.
In the first of a new fantasy series by Durst (The Girl Who Could Not Dream, 2015, etc.), a woman with apparently weak magical abilities but exceptional smarts and determination competes to rule her land.
Aratay is a land where all the villages and even the cities are improbably built among the tree branches. This closeness to nature has its extreme downside, as the forest is swarming with wood, earth, water, air, and ice spirits whose deepest instinct is to exterminate humans. Paradoxically, the spirits are also compelled to forfeit some of their power to the queen they select, allowing that single human to control them all and forestall their more destructive tendencies. But is the current queen, Fara, losing that control? In spite of the queen, spirits slaughtered the village of Greytree—everyone but the family of Daleina, who revealed an affinity toward the spirits and managed to hold them off. Years later, Daleina begins training to become one of the queen’s potential heirs but cannot match the magical strength of her fellow candidates. Nevertheless, her drive and intelligence attract the disgraced Champion Ven, Queen Fara’s former lover, who hones the young woman’s skills and in the process discovers Fara’s terrible secret. There are plenty of fantasy bildungsromans that chronicle how a plucky young woman develops her unconventional magic in time to save everyone, and those even mildly familiar with the trope will foresee several aspects of the plot. However, it’s rare for a tale like this to have such an incredibly high body count or to force the protagonist to make the dark choices Daleina must. The overriding message—that great strength administered without heed for the consequences is inferior to the ability to intelligently apply a smaller amount of power—has also been shared before, but this is a particularly effective (if bloody) dissemination.
Enough substance to break from the pack; here’s hoping that future volumes pull even farther ahead.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-241334-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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