Another entry in Hunt's steampunk/what-all series (The Rise of the Iron Moon, 2011, etc.).
Ice-covered and only marginally habitable, surrounded by a magma sea, the island continent of Jago is the only place where electricity works. Emigration is forbidden and most of Jago's underground cities are abandoned. When young Hannah Conquest, a Jackelian by birth, was orphaned, Archbishop Alice Gray of the Circlist Church—another Jackelian exile—took her as a ward. But even Alice is helpless when the Guild of Valvemen's evil leader, Vardan Flail, conscripts Hannah. Despite their skill with electricity and computing, valvemen rapidly develop hideous deformities due to radiation. Worse, when Alice is brutally and mysteriously murdered in her own cathedral, somebody also tries to kill Hannah, evidently in an attempt to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop and presumably passed to Hannah. Perhaps the death of Hannah's archaeologist parents shortly after her birth was not accidental. Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Jackals, Jethro Daunt, a defrocked Circlist parson turned private investigator, and his sidekick, a sentient-robot steamman named Boxiron, accepts the Circlist Inquisition's request (read demand) to investigate the murder of the archbishop. This relatively sedate beginning swiftly accelerates into typically frenzied action and mind-boggling invention involving duels, gods, assassinations, battles, intrigue, cryptography and dangerous secrets: Hunt sets no limits on anything, which is both the attraction and the problem.
A slow-starting murder mystery that rapidly turns hyper-complicated and explosive, though for many readers the series remains very much an acquired taste.
Pub Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2767-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable, worthwhile end to an immersive series.
Cerúlia takes back her throne, but her troubles are just beginning in Kozloff’s (A Broken Queen, 2020, etc.) fourth and final Four Realms novel.
It only takes five chapters for Cerúlia to successfully overthrow Matwyck and take her throne. At first it feels a bit pat for a four-book series to resolve its main plotline so early in its final volume, but it turns out there’s more to successfully ruling a kingdom than putting a crown on your head. Queen Cerúlia has to root out the network of people who supported Matwyck’s coup; she must discern which people genuinely wish to serve her and which are liars waiting to end her reign before it gets going. What’s more, she must address political issues like the growing resentment among the common people toward the aristocracy and deal with thorny issues of international diplomacy. All the while, she has to figure out how to finally be herself when she was forced to spend almost her entire life pretending she was not the rightful queen. Kozloff has great instincts when it comes to pacing, and the novel flies by with a good mix of action sequences and emotional, character-developing beats. Her villains are never one-note, and her heroes are complicated and fallible. Still, it all starts to feel a little paint-by-number. It’s not that there are never any consequences or losses, but eventually it feels a bit too certain that Cerúlia will get it right and things will go her way. Even so, the series ender is just as much fun as the rest of the books.
An enjoyable, worthwhile end to an immersive series.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16896-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Fans will love the second installment of this dark fantasy about very human characters beset by inhuman dangers.
When the world changes, will you change with it?
A boy who takes pleasure in causing pain meets a monster who can teach him to do much more. A Soulkeeper puts his reputation on the line to stop the abuse of soulless humans—while concealing his relationship with an "awakened" formerly soulless woman. A religious woman given unimaginable power over human souls by a monster struggles to determine right from wrong, faith from blasphemy. In a world where mountains walk, prayers can change the physical world, and magical creatures like talking rabbit-soldiers have awoken from a centurieslong slumber, no choice is simple. The Soulkeeper Devin has chosen to befriend creatures like the faery Tesmarie while his spellcasting brother-in-law, Tommy, believes the newly awakened magical creatures have as much right to the land as humans do. In a time when most humans are reacting with fear and anger to their changing world, seeing the world in shades of gray can be dangerous. Meanwhile, Devin’s sister, Adria, finds that her new powers are testing her faith and bringing up questions she’d rather not confront. As new magical threats to the human population arise, all of these characters will be pushed to their limits, and the decisions they make may determine the fate of humanity. Picking up where Soulkeeper (2019) left off, this second book in a planned trilogy raises the stakes for every character, complicating the moral choices they face. The plot rockets along from one magical battle to the next, but Dalglish deftly weaves in rich character development alongside all this action.
Fans will love the second installment of this dark fantasy about very human characters beset by inhuman dangers.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-41669-6
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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