For all that, an energetic and respectful retelling of one of the grandest—and, in its sexual and fatalistic emphases, most...
A third ambitious historical fantasy from the American-born author (now living in Ireland) who previously reworked the matter of Germanic legend in his highly praised Rhinegold (1994) and Attila’s Treasure (1996).
This time, Grundy’s source is the Babylonian tale of the Sumerian warrior king Gilgamesh, believed to date from approximately 2000 B.C. and written down (on stone tablets) some 12 centuries later. It celebrates the exploits of a hero of superhuman origin (“two-thirds god and one-third man”) who beds numerous women, defends his kingdom (Erech) against foreign invasion, then encounters “wild man” Enkidu, who becomes the young king’s comrade in arms, devoted friend, and the lover who turns him away from the world of women. Grundy takes only minimal liberties with the known details, in a story that builds impressively through the dazzling sequence in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the monstrous scorpion that guards a cedar forest, offending a powerful goddess, condemning Enkidu to death, and precipitating the impressive dénouement, dominated by Gilgamesh’s journey to “the Netherworld” in a vain quest for the secret of eternal life. This rich epic also contains interpolated verse passages reminiscent of the biblical Song of Solomon, and there are other Old Testament echoes in lamentations similar to Job’s and in the sequences featuring Gilgamesh’s immortal kinsman Utnapishti, survivor of a long-ago “Great Flood.” The only really jarring notes are introduced in the figure of Erech’s priestess the Shamhatu, whose sacred duties conflict with her womanly needs in a manner that feels a tad too contemporary—as does Grundy’s unwise mixture of sexual explicitness with dialogue so unintentionally comic (“Lions are rough playmates, . . . And so have we been sometimes”) that it rivals the most egregious empurpled passages of Norman Mailer’s equally risky Ancient Evenings.
For all that, an energetic and respectful retelling of one of the grandest—and, in its sexual and fatalistic emphases, most unconventional—of all the masterpieces of antiquity.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-380-97574-2
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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