Overwhelming but nonetheless enjoyable.
Duff’s fantasy debut, the first in a planned series, introduces the Weir, a millennia-old race of stewards of the Earth who conceal the magical powers some possess while living alongside humans.
Ian Black is an illusionist with a secret: The flashy tricks that have made him famous aren’t tricks at all. He’s a Weir with abilities like “shyfting” (teleportation), drawing his power from the magnetic field of the planet. He lives in unwilling isolation with his psychic Channels, twins Mara and Tara; Milo, his tutor and caretaker; and his manager, Patrick, the only human who knows some of his illusions are real. While Ian wants to be part of the human world, he’s kept from doing so by the Syndrion, a council that rules one race of Weirs, the Pur, who fight the evil Duach. When Sars (firstborn males with magical powers) from opposite sides meet, they react like matter and antimatter, a painful reaction known as the Curse. Ian defies Syndrion authority by saving humans in danger; their plights come to him in visions. One night, while saving college student Rayne Bevan, he’s unexpectedly hit by the Curse and discovers there’s much the Syndrion hasn’t told him about himself and the world. Rayne, for her part, is fascinated by the reclusive illusionist, first as a curious journalist and then as a woman. She’s unexpectedly drawn into his world when she sets off on a search for the father she never knew. Duff’s worldbuilding is fairly fluid; much of Ian’s background and the wider realm of the Weirs are revealed naturally in dialogue rather than in long, explanatory narrative. Her neologisms can be defined from context: For instance, when Ian shyfts for the first time, the reader understands he’s moved magically from place to place without being told. The details and new characters keep piling up, however, with genetically altered wolves, Duach assassins and true love all playing parts. The ambitious plot occasionally muddles the narrative; Duff deserves applause for having so many ideas, but a few might have been held back for later volumes.
Overwhelming but nonetheless enjoyable.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990562818
Page Count: 458
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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