A witty and captivating perspective from a famous fictional character.
In this satire, the Minotaur of Greek mythology tells his unusual and bloody life story.
This first-person account comes from the Minotaur, named Asterion, who’s speaking to the new 21st-century arrivals to Hades. In the Middle Realm (aka Earth), he is born to Queen Pasiphaë and a white bull intended for sacrifice. As Asterion’s mother dies giving birth, her husband, Minos, becomes the king of Crete. Though Minos sends servants to kill Asterion, the young Minotaur survives and in time meets his siblings. But ultimately, Minos puts Asterion in a cage and subsequently shuts him away in a labyrinth. Minos intermittently sends 14 virgins—seven boys and seven girls—to the labyrinth as sacrifices. Though Asterion boasts to his listeners that he’s the greatest of all serial killers, he also stresses he had to murder humans to stay alive. And while he engages in sexual acts with and even grows fond of some of those humans, he invariably kills and eats nearly everyone. Once Asterion meets his own inevitable death, he lands in hell, where he is reunited with and learns the fates of individuals he knew while he was alive. Shachtman’s amusing tale is predominantly tongue-in-cheek. The humor is unsurprisingly dark once inside the labyrinth, though scenes of sex and violent death are never excessively graphic. Much of the comedy stems from Asterion’s striking narration, as he’s prone to alliteration and contemporary phrases or references. He, for example, says of Crete’s virgins (and potential sacrifices) that none of them want “to win this version of Athenian Idol.” Populating the intriguing story are numerous mythological figures, including Daedalus, the labyrinth’s creator, and his son, Icarus. Though several of these characters star in the Hades-set final act, the tale ends with a memorable denouement for the Minotaur.
A witty and captivating perspective from a famous fictional character. (author bio)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-948692-38-0
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Madville Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another of Leckie’s beautiful mergings of the political, philosophical, and personal.
A seemingly pointless quest ignites a political firestorm in this space opera follow-up to the Imperial Radch trilogy and Provenance (2017).
Enae Athtur (whose pronouns are sie/hir) is forced from hir childhood home and hir comfort zone to take a job for the Saeniss Polity’s Office of Diplomacy that’s intended as a sinecure: searching for traces of a fugitive Presger Translator who disappeared 200 years ago. Meanwhile, despite having been raised by kindly foster parents, Reet Hluid has never quite fit in anywhere. Ignorant of his origins, trapped in a dead-end job, friendless, and tormented by strangely compelling daydreams of vivisecting the people he meets, he thinks he’s finally found community with the Siblings of Hikipu. On what appears to be very little evidence, they claim that Reet is a Schan, a scion of their long-vanished royal line, and welcome him to their fellowship, which celebrates their cultural heritage…and perhaps dabbles in a little terrorism. And Qven, brought up in the innocently violent nursery of the Presger Translators, fears losing themself in the transition to adulthood, which involves a physical and mental merging with another person; their attempt to escape that apparent inevitability leads to Qven’s permanent disgrace. When Enae does what no one expects—actually finding the trail of the lost Translator—it upends the lives of Enae, Reet, and Qven and threatens the treaty that protects humanity from the Presger, an impossibly powerful and enigmatic alien race. It all sounds very complicated—and it is, enjoyably so—but basically, this is yet another opportunity for Leckie to explore her favorite themes: the meaning of family, humanity, and the right to one’s personhood. Although the novel is mostly set outside the Radch Empire, the events of that trilogy and of Provenance have a profound effect on the action here, and they also share some characters. This work also addresses many questions from the previous books about the peculiar behavior of Translators, whose originally human DNA has been substantially reengineered by the Presger.
Another of Leckie’s beautiful mergings of the political, philosophical, and personal.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780316289719
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
An enjoyable, worthwhile end to an immersive series.
Cerúlia takes back her throne, but her troubles are just beginning in Kozloff’s (A Broken Queen, 2020, etc.) fourth and final Four Realms novel.
It only takes five chapters for Cerúlia to successfully overthrow Matwyck and take her throne. At first it feels a bit pat for a four-book series to resolve its main plotline so early in its final volume, but it turns out there’s more to successfully ruling a kingdom than putting a crown on your head. Queen Cerúlia has to root out the network of people who supported Matwyck’s coup; she must discern which people genuinely wish to serve her and which are liars waiting to end her reign before it gets going. What’s more, she must address political issues like the growing resentment among the common people toward the aristocracy and deal with thorny issues of international diplomacy. All the while, she has to figure out how to finally be herself when she was forced to spend almost her entire life pretending she was not the rightful queen. Kozloff has great instincts when it comes to pacing, and the novel flies by with a good mix of action sequences and emotional, character-developing beats. Her villains are never one-note, and her heroes are complicated and fallible. Still, it all starts to feel a little paint-by-number. It’s not that there are never any consequences or losses, but eventually it feels a bit too certain that Cerúlia will get it right and things will go her way. Even so, the series ender is just as much fun as the rest of the books.
An enjoyable, worthwhile end to an immersive series.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16896-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
