A thoughtful, richly detailed fantasy adventure.
Peaceful agrarian islanders defend their home with the help of an outsider in this fantasy.
On the planet Diox, Jon Sevanthian works as a security enforcer for the trading corporation IMX. His boss, Greengold, informs him that his next mission is on Plethlonney Island, a “paradise” that’s been isolated for decades by a period of war called Chaos. There, his “Prime Directive” will be to “Protect Trade.” Jon isn’t allowed to take any weapons nor is he to know anything about the secretive agrarian society ahead of time. Once on Plethlonney, Jon meets his guide, Prethlind Barleykind, who’s one of the stout Sheep People. She teaches Jon to ride a horse, the island’s primary mode of transport, and brings him to the Hollycourt Tree, a massive living structure that houses a family of sheep shearers. Elsewhere on Plethlonney, a trio of “Fighting Man-Machines” arrives from the island of Klare. They’ve been sent by those with an interest in the Sheep People’s wool trade. As Jon develops a fuller picture of Plethlonney’s society, he finds the peace on the island fragile. In the north, the Mountain People harbor deep jealousy over the success of their southern neighbors, including the Horse People. Will meeting the Sheep People’s ruler, Queen Yuten, help Jon complete his mission? In this series opener, Gill deftly offers fantasy readers a detailed look into animal husbandry against a backdrop of political intrigue. Some genre fans may get whiplash from the extensive SF worldbuilding that frames a sociological study. But the Fighting Man-Machines, which use the brains of women (who sometimes rejoin their original bodies), help keep the balance. Prompts to rethink humanity’s relationship to the natural world abound in intriguing lines like “Humans are reluctant to grant the existence of an intelligence that is not human, especially if they are not used to animals.” Readers may need patience waiting for the novel’s title character to appear. Jon’s outsider perspective encourages long explanations for his benefit, yet this approach sacrifices more intimate character work. Future volumes may allow the large cast to drive the narrative.
A thoughtful, richly detailed fantasy adventure.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2022
ISBN: 9781039146365
Page Count: 300
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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