Courage, skill, and magic are qualities that characterize 18-year-old Alanna in this third volume of the Song of the Lioness series. The tale (which can be enjoyed separately from the first two books) depicts Alanna's first year as a knight-errant for King Roald of Torvall, and combines the best charms of fantasy, adventure and romance. Alanna's adventures test not only her physical and spiritual qualities but her sense of identity and purpose. Alanna, her talking cat Faithful, her horse Moonlight, and teacher/ companion Coran meet the Bazhir desert tribesmen as the story begins. Finding themselves captive of the Bloody Hawk tribe, Alanna overcomes their leader's distrust through courage and luck. Alanna's defeat of the tribe's best fighter begins her exploits, which amaze and awe the Bazhirs. When she destroys her enemy, the tribe's evil holy man Ibn Nazzior, Alanna is asked to become their shaman. She challenges many of the tribe's customs and beliefs (especially those of sex roles) because of her independent action. As shaman, she trains two young outcast Bazhir women in their magical talents to become the first female tribal shamans. Alanna also fights the evil that enchants a crystal sword, which she won from a desert bandit in battle. The love Alanna feels for Prince Jonathon, who visits the tribe to learn its history, conflicts with her adventurous nature which craves action and recognition as a knight/soldier of the realm. Her attraction for George, the King of Thieves, brings her happiness, but another set of problems. Whom should she marry, Prince Jonathon or George? Alanna's world is a harsh one, but believable. Her uncertainties about her identity and her future are the ones that many young contemporary teens face. This fantasy provides food for introspection as well as flights of imagination into a magical kingdom. (Fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 1986
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2765-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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