A slight diversion for fans of teen romance.
A teen fantasy debut that sees a young woman caught between warring nation-states.
It’s 3085, over a thousand years since the Third World War delivered nuclear destruction. A new civilizationcalled Unmundi has risen. Situated on a single continent are four habitable regions: the Mountain Division, the Sea, the Desert and the South Division. In the Mountain Division lives 18-year-old Anastasia, an orphan who serves in King Byron’s castle. When Anastasia’s brother Zephyr is robbed on the Crossing—a road that allows trade among the Divisions—Byron doesn’t believe him and instead threatens to kill him. After Anastasia begs for his life, the king proposes a solution: “You swear yourself to me, and I shall spare your brother’s life.” Anastasia agrees, and the king wastes no time abusing her; she defends herself and flees. Once Anastasia is recaptured, a metal collar is soldered around her neck. Luckily, the blacksmith sympathizes with her, later helping her escape. Anastasia reaches the South Division and finds work as a scullion wench in King Valek’s castle. In contrast to King Byron’s oppressed people, Anastasia’s new acquaintances seem to worship Valek, who violently usurped the throne from the South’s previous king. But Byron doesn’t plan to let Anastasia escape easily; he’s branded her a dangerous criminal and hopes to enlist Valek in her return. Debut author Khan pulls readers into her medieval world with moments that wouldn’t be out of place in Game of Thrones. In one particularly brutal scene: “Somebody was screaming in the dungeon. It took a moment for Anastasia to realize it was her.” Khan typically offers just enough description to set the scene, eschewing the bulk that many fantasy novels favor: “The entrance of the castle was at the top of some raised white marble stairs, and the double doors were also a white marble with black veins intertwined into the white stone.” The problem is that aside from a world risen from the ashes of nuclear war, there are scant other fantasy elements. Straightforward action/romance follows from a great (if familiar) premise, enlivened with only a few minor twists. The sequel should take more creative risks.
A slight diversion for fans of teen romance.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483408620
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
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