An absorbing first installment that presages an intriguing new fantasy series.
In a debut novel, James introduces readers to an alternate modern-day England where enticing drama and social unrest mix with aristocratic scandal and glamorous magic.
Luke and Abigail Hadley are teenagers living in an England ruled by aristocratic families who wield magical power. All commoners without magical “Skill” are obligated to serve for a decade as slaves, either in the industrial horrors of a slave town, the lowest and most dangerous ranks of the military, or on the grand estates of their masters. When Luke and Abigail’s parents decide that their whole family should serve their decades together, Abigail manages to get them assigned to the lavish and powerful estate of the Jardine family, but a last-minute reassignment sends Luke to the miserable slave town of Millmoor. Separated from his family, Luke finds friendship among a plucky group of abolitionists playing a dangerous “game,” and the threads of his story begin to tangle with the political intrigue and powerful magic that Abigail stumbles into at the Jardine estate. The plot proceeds at a satisfying pace, switching between storylines at just the right intervals to gratify both suspense and impatience, and while the architecture of the story is not particularly original (conjuring up the specters of Les Misérables and Downton Abbey), its execution elicits the pleasurable urge to find out what happens next. The characters are similarly engaging, a cast of likable and occasionally unusual individuals who slip easily into the reader’s imagination, and while the jarring elements of their world—a society that contains video games and earbuds nestled alongside both magic and systematic, socially accepted slavery—might disorient at first, their selfish motivations and competing desires for maintenance or righteous change pull believability in their wake.
An absorbing first installment that presages an intriguing new fantasy series.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28415-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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
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