by Trudi Canavan ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2020
An agreeable conclusion to a worthy but not outstanding series.
Wrapping up the Millennium’s Rule fantasy series (Successor's Promise, 2017, etc.), although the outcome dangles just enough for sequels.
Again, the narrative alternates between two points of view. Sorcerer Rielle the Maker, with her uniquely potent ability to create new magic, has been tasked by the Restorers to fill "dead" worlds with new magic. But when the Restorers' leader, Baluka, asks her to take sides in an alarming dispute between two competing worlds, she refuses. Meanwhile, Tyen, one of the most powerful sorcerers in existence, needs to research ways to defeat the magic-powered war machines that are fast becoming a major problem among the many worlds linked by magical pathways. Hoping to take charge of the failing, hidebound school on his magic-depleted home world, he asks Rielle to flood the world with new magic. All this trundles along, preceded by detailed recaps of and updates to prior events and interspersed with Rielle's musings or Tyen's bureaucratic wrangles. Finally, the story gets going when the sorcerer Dahli, once a ruthless opponent, now a trusty ally—maybe—shows up to report overwhelming attacks by a new generation of magic robots: onslaughts that leave entire worlds empty of humans, depleted of magic, and dedicated solely to manufacturing new robot hordes. Renegade sorcerers are working for whomever's directing them. Worse, young Zeke, a talented machine designer and Tyen's protégé, has been captured and enslaved. Yet the plot still tends to meander around minor characters of faint charm and scant importance to the main thread. And the existential threat never really persuades—the good guys just seem too confident, the machines aren't particularly baleful, the villains lack incentive. So the conclusion boils up nicely yet doesn't fully deliver on the potential displayed in the earlier books.
An agreeable conclusion to a worthy but not outstanding series.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-42120-1
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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by TJ Klune ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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PERSPECTIVES
by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
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New York Times Bestseller
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast
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