Readers who prefer their gore with huge melodramatic flourishes and a side of slyly amusing repartee will find John Taylor...
An addition to Green's urban-fantasy noir Nightside series (The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, 2010, etc.).
For the uninitiated, Nightside is a sort of alternate London inhabited by gods, demons, monsters and other less savory creatures, where it's perpetually 3 a.m. PI John Taylor—he has the Sight, among other talents—receives Excalibur (yes, that Excalibur) in the mail. Why, and what's he supposed to do with it? Well, in this universe there are two Arthurs—the usual one, defeated centuries ago by Mordred, supposedly slumbering until the final battle; the other is King of Sinister Albion, a hellish place of ultimate evil summoned into existence by a devil-spawned alternate Merlin. (Taylor killed the original Merlin. He seems to have killed an awful lot of people during the course of the series.) Narrator Taylor decides to consult Camelot's worthy descendants, the London Knights, who speak of impending war with the elves (in Green's rendering, there are two factions, both almost entirely malevolent); of renegade knight Jerusalem Stark; and of the return of the evil Arthur and Merlin. It looks like a tough assignment, even for Taylor and his sidekick, Shotgun Suzie, who delights in blowing malefactors apart with her magic, blessed and simultaneously cursed shotgun shells. Oddly enough, the anticipated showdown fizzles.
Readers who prefer their gore with huge melodramatic flourishes and a side of slyly amusing repartee will find John Taylor at least the equal of Jim Butcher's Chicago wizard PI Harry Dresden.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-441-01970-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
A moderately promising entry that should find an audience.
Larkwood's debut, the first of a fantasy series, begins in familiar fashion as a warrior-maiden adventure and gradually develops into a love story.
In this imaginative but never fully convincing universe, places may be reached via magical gates leading through a maze of dead and dying worlds. Magic powers derive from a rare, innate ability combined with power vouchsafed by a patron god. Csorwe is of a hominin race that sports tusks—these are functionless and, unfortunately, impossible to visualize without thinking "piggish." In a narrative rendered in crisp, vivid prose, Csorwe serves the oracular shrine of a god—the Unspoken Name—but is destined soon to sacrifice herself. Then Sethennai, a wizard—his race has Spock ears—requesting a prophesy about the mysterious and powerful Reliquary of Pentravesse, offers her a choice: serve him and live, or marry the god and die. Csorwe chooses life and becomes Sethennai's ninja. The wizard, formerly the ruler of the city Tlaanthothe, needs her to help reclaim his position from a scheming rival. Later, during a quest to secure the Reliquary, she will clash with the Qarsazhi, imperial interworld extortionists, and their powerful young wizard Shuthmili, who's fated to be absorbed by their enforcement arm but, like Csorwe, never conceived other possibilities. Until this point, the story meanders, but finally the author finds a unique voice no longer dependent on boilerplate action, chases, escapes, torture, and fights. And when Csorwe and Shuthmili meet and fumble toward a relationship, we recognize heartfelt emotion, real substance, and an emergent theme: loyalties and the choices we make that engender them. These, along with the strong female leads, are solid foundations upon which to build.
A moderately promising entry that should find an audience.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-23890-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
An almost-but-not-quite-great slavery novel.
The celebrated author of Between the World and Me (2015) and We Were Eight Years in Power (2017) merges magic, adventure, and antebellum intrigue in his first novel.
In pre–Civil War Virginia, people who are white, whatever their degree of refinement, are considered “the Quality” while those who are black, whatever their degree of dignity, are regarded as “the Tasked.” Whether such euphemisms for slavery actually existed in the 19th century, they are evocatively deployed in this account of the Underground Railroad and one of its conductors: Hiram Walker, one of the Tasked who’s barely out of his teens when he’s recruited to help guide escapees from bondage in the South to freedom in the North. “Conduction” has more than one meaning for Hiram. It's also the name for a mysterious force that transports certain gifted individuals from one place to another by way of a blue light that lifts and carries them along or across bodies of water. Hiram knows he has this gift after it saves him from drowning in a carriage mishap that kills his master’s oafish son (who’s Hiram’s biological brother). Whatever the source of this power, it galvanizes Hiram to leave behind not only his chains, but also the two Tasked people he loves most: Thena, a truculent older woman who practically raised him as a surrogate mother, and Sophia, a vivacious young friend from childhood whose attempt to accompany Hiram on his escape is thwarted practically at the start when they’re caught and jailed by slave catchers. Hiram directly confronts the most pernicious abuses of slavery before he is once again conducted away from danger and into sanctuary with the Underground, whose members convey him to the freer, if funkier environs of Philadelphia, where he continues to test his power and prepare to return to Virginia to emancipate the women he left behind—and to confront the mysteries of his past. Coates’ imaginative spin on the Underground Railroad’s history is as audacious as Colson Whitehead’s, if less intensely realized. Coates’ narrative flourishes and magic-powered protagonist are reminiscent of his work on Marvel’s Black Panther superhero comic book, but even his most melodramatic effects are deepened by historical facts and contemporary urgency.
An almost-but-not-quite-great slavery novel.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-59059-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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