Strieber's horror novels often rework classic occult themes (Unholy Fire: possession; The Hunger: vampirism, etc). Now, in an unusually spooky—and splattery—offering, the author updates the monstrous mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, to whom he dedicates the book. The eerie doings pile on quickly, beginning with physicist Brian Kelly hearing screams emanating from a mound in his hometown of Oscola, New York. Years back, Brian's first wife and child died in a fire, and ever since he's been a wreck, abandoning his time- travel experiments and cringing at the screams he still can hear- -and so Brian wonders whether he's imagining this scream, until his new and pregnant Vietnamese wife, Loi, also hears it. A dig, however, reveals only dirt. But later that night, newspaperwoman Ellen Maas visits the dig and is swarmed by a horde of huge lightning bugs that nearly suffocates her, while Brian, also returning to the mound, is mesmerized by purple lights that crackle with sexual energy. The next day, screaming is heard at another site, and this time digging reveals the corpse of a woman, every bone in her body pulverized—but her left eye still glimmering with evil intent. Ellen and Brian team up to investigate, evoking Loi's jealousy—but when the menace fully reveals itself in the form of further animate corpses bursting open to loose further swarms of lightning bugs, the corpses then mutating into gigantic tentacled creatures that ferociously shred the town and its inhabitants—it's Loi who leads the fight. But can she combat this superintelligent creature, freed from a parallel universe by Brian's old experiments, before it destroys her—as well as her baby, squirming to be born? Genuinely scary, with plenty of scattered body parts for gorehounds—but subtle it is not, and the Providence recluse was scarier still, by saying less and implying far more.
Pub Date: July 8, 1993
ISBN: 0-525-93683-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
Categories: PARANORMAL FICTION
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With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
21
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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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Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FANTASY | PARANORMAL FICTION | EPIC FANTASY | PARANORMAL FANTASY
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