First of a new doorstopper fantasy series from the author of Dreamseeker’s Road (1995), etc. Desert kingdom Ixti’s regime is aristocratic; in frigid, neighboring Eron, people are organized into craft guilds confusingly called “clans.” Arrogant young Eronese craftsman Eddyn rapes and impregnates the beautiful Strynn. To preserve the Balance, the Clan chiefs decree that Eddyn’s cousin, Avall, shall wed Strynn, and all three will be posted to Gem-Hold for the winter. Here, they’ll mine gemstones and make articles for King Gynn’s royal regalia. Avall’s sister Merryn, having humiliated Eddyn during ritual war games, goes to War-Hold. Hunting in Ixti, Prince Kraxxi accidentally impales his younger brother, King Barrax’s favorite, and flees. Merryn apprehends Kraxxi and, unaware of his identity, takes him as her lover. Avall, meanwhile, discovers an extraordinary gemstone that feeds on blood (a familiar Deitz icon).When Avall and friend Rann both feed the gem, they’re also able to share their minds! Soon Avall finds that he can telepathically contact Merryn, too! Eddyn continues to skulk and spy on Avall and Strynn; he touches the gem, but it hates him. Avall decides that the Clan bigwigs must be told about the gem, and leaves with Rann. Eddyn does inform trainee priest Rrath about the gem; but Rrath’s clandestinely involved with a secret society that orders the pair to pursue Avall through the snow. Avall, sharing with herder woman Div, learns that the carnivorous birkits are both sentient and telepathic, so when Eddyn and company attack, the birkits defend them. Avall, wounded, falls into an icy river. Kraxxi flees from Merryn, but King Barrax’s chief torturer captures them both. Some promising ideas, set forth at interminable length, with youthful and largely indistinguishable characters; a sketchy backdrop; and not even a token ending. Your move.
Pub Date: April 13, 1999
ISBN: 0-553-37863-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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