A sprawling fantasy that’s an inventive love letter to the genre.
A diverse group of heroes gathers to battle a witch who can destroy the world in this epic fantasy debut.
It is the Ninth Age of the Fire Horse, and a great evil prepares to consume the world. Tregha is a Forest Ranger hunting for Dagghu warriors in the Arun Delta. The Rangers operate under the leadership of Lord Adfir and hope to meet with the Southern Patrol soon. Tregha is actually half Dagghu, the illegitimate son of Chief Knamu, who used magic to impregnate Lady Lylhanne, an Elf Trueblood hostage. Tregha’s dark stoicism helps keep his monstrous Dagghu heritage in check. When Adfir returns from scouting with a Fennelora priestess named Astoriie, Tregha sees someone who lives in perfect harmony with nature—someone to admire. After learning that the Southern Patrol has been destroyed, the Rangers find themselves battling the animated corpses of their comrades. Astoriie senses an all-consuming evil supporting the Dagghu warriors, who’ve grown bolder. The primary hope standing against this dark force is the wizard Aenrindel of Ellendor. As the wizard travels with a caravan across the Rall’Haku desert to the city of Kabir, he’s accompanied by a young monk called Luo. The 9-year-old child has been instructed by Master Su of the Long Fang Temple to guard Aenrindel but also to eliminate him if he’s seduced by evil. When several cars from the caravan mysteriously vanish into the desert’s red mists, the group steps onto the long road of confrontation with the witch Kakista. Can heroes with both physical and magical might stop her from killing the world?
In this series opener, Kalimeris brings together different types of fantasy storytelling to forge a dense, palate-cleansing adventure. Some readers will respond to motifs similar to those in classics like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series, such as races of elves, dwarfs, and the fellowship-style banding together of heroes. Fans of darker fantasy works, including Stephen Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon (1999), will appreciate the parade of fresh concepts that seem almost disposable in their profusion. There are, for example, several elaborately conceived character origins shuffled into the larger story that often enforce an episodic pacing. In a flashback, readers learn of Ryn Kartashee, a “warrior poet” who’s owned by Prince Qelek of Kabir and whose prowess in the fighting pits earns him the love of Harinni, the royal’s betrothed. Ryn and Harinni’s story is grand in its own right, but readers may need patience while the primary narrative rotates slowly back into view. The author’s prose is lean on dialogue, frequently requiring readers to submit to lengthy descriptions of scenes both violent and bucolic. When Navardi, the Chosen of the Sun God Ra, battles an army, “the searing heat soon filled the air with the stench of roasting flesh as ten thousand men cooked at once.” Such violent moments are outnumbered by paeans to nature, as in the passage “Spry flowers in white, gold, and purple pose in the petticoats, millions of tiny dancers suspended mid-lift in the steady hands of their betrothed.” Overall, the imagination on display is remarkable. Yet the equally amazing characters need more space to breathe and potentially carry a less cluttered, more emotionally resonant tale.
A sprawling fantasy that’s an inventive love letter to the genre.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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