This third volume in the Books of Mortals series, a collaboration between Christian writer Dekker and his partner, Lee, continues the tale of an alternative universe with an allegorical flavor.
This tale began as the world had a brush with extinction that left it populated by nothing but the dead, who were rendered bereft of all qualities that made them human. Soon, war broke out between various factions. From the Immortals, the Dark Bloods and the Corpses, to the Sovereigns, those who populate the Earth fight the others for supremacy. Now, the Sovereigns have been all but wiped out by their enemies, which have hunted their numbers down to a mere 37. Of this number, Jordin has emerged as one of their leaders. Filled with the blood of the boy Jonathan, who died and whose blood has turned the remaining Sovereigns into his followers, Jordin and the others live in the ruined and abandoned mazes in the city, hunted by Saric and the evil Feyn. Now, one of their number, an alchemist, has devised a virus that will destroy them all, but their leader, Rom, is convinced that to kill Feyn would go against Jonathan’s teachings. Rom slips away to try to bring Feyn to her senses, and Jordin hatches a plan of her own. She also leaves the questionable safety of the maze in order to find both Saric and Feyn, but she plans a different outcome: She promises the alchemist that she will bring their heads back with her, and in return, he will not release the virus immediately. This follows Jordin’s journey and that of the young girl Kaya who sneaks off to accompany her and the terrible sacrifice the two make in order to gain an advantage over their enemy in a desperate attempt for survival. An installment enhanced by Lee's smooth, competent writing.
Pub Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59995-359-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: FaithWords
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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