by Wendell Thomas ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2014
A lovingly rendered world that welcomes readers of every stripe.
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This debut YA fantasy sees a group of friendly forest-dwelling animals fend off a clan of savage predators.
Tango the black cat lives in an ancient, majestic forest filled with companionable critters, including possums, raccoons, squirrels, a bear and others. With him are three more felines, Sonar, Ally and Koda. They live together harmoniously, enjoying the forest’s splendor and seasonal rhythms. They also must rely on each other to protect against a gang of vicious bullies—like Valgar the vulture and Howler the coyote—who would terrorize and decimate their population. Luckily, a kind wizard named Fozzly lends the forest-dwellers his healing magic whenever necessary. Fozzly, who’s good friends with Tango, has revealed to him the existence of the destiny-altering lifestone, which has been missing since the wizard’s homeland was destroyed by frigid weather. Fozzly also mentions his nemesis, Darlok, who may have stolen the lifestone in the past and whose whereabouts are unknown. One day, turmoil strikes when the adventurous Sonar gets lost in the northern lands; he ends up in foul Mandor, the home of the belligerent carnivores. Initially, Sonar takes up with a tomcat named Spike—but he thinks it’s only a matter of time before forest raiders recognize him and try to hurt him. Do Tango and the others dare mount a rescue in enemy territory? Combining dreamy fantasy settings with high adventure, Thomas’ debut novel is a lavish treat for young adults and animal lovers. In one pleasantly odoriferous scene, Ally notices “the sweet, soft smell of late summer flowers mixed with the pungent odor of pine needles.” There are fascinating animal facts, too, as when Diablo (a hawk) “enjoyed riding the thermal air masses without the...noise and strain of using his wings.” Occasionally, the prose may offer a vocabulary workout for younger readers—“frenzy of adrenaline soaked havoc”—and some of the violence gets quite grisly, like “a streak of exposed muscle all the way from his mouth to his ear.” That said, Thomas parlays this narrative edginess into an emotional win, leaving the cat-flap open for a sequel.
A lovingly rendered world that welcomes readers of every stripe.Pub Date: July 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500220389
Page Count: 366
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Rebecca Yarros ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2023
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
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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