Heroes cut through danger in this action-heavy quest.
Cifichiello’s fantasy debut follows a group of warriors on a quest for survival.
Trouble is afoot when the Five Kings of Varkuvia decide to disband the highly trained warrior group known as the Order of Acrium—“the greatest fighting force in known history”—because, the kings say, it is “both too costly to maintain and is no longer necessary in bringing peace to these lands.” Without the Order of Acrium for protection, the land of Varkuvia is in danger of succumbing to four treacherous lords from the mountainous east. Meanwhile, soldiers like Trystan find themselves displaced. Homeless and with no known relatives, Trystan remains quick with a sword albeit unsure of his destiny. That is until he and other former members of the Order become targets of assassination. “I don’t know how many of us remain,” Trystan says, “but someone is going to great lengths to see our lives extinguished.” Banding together with old friends Jaxon, Kole, and Gavin, Trystan and company fight to save not only their own lives, but the land they once protected. Cifichiello’s novel is full of clashing swords and brutal warfare: “The enemy went into a frenzy, cutting the heads from defenders, and placing them upon their spear points, shaking them back and forth, taunting the remaining defenders.” Moments of flat dialogue—as when Jaxon’s wife expresses her gratitude: “I’m truly grateful to you for that”—dull the adventure’s edge, though a speedy pace helps keep the journey moving. Fans of scheming lords and battling peasants will enjoy the political maneuvering, which is complex though not impenetrable. Dotted with magical surprises and streaks of blood—“The streets became littered with the bodies of the slain, and the ground itself bled the tears of the fallen, the red liquid flowing beneath the combatants”—the story provides a swift journey through a land of kings, warriors, and a populace struggling to make sense of it all. As one member of the Order says, “People are idiots.”
Heroes cut through danger in this action-heavy quest.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1634171311
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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