The narrative terminates in what might be dubbed an anti-cliffhanger: It just stops, and what it all adds up to, or where...
Second, and even more bewildering, entry in the Pendulum trilogy (The Pilgrims, 2014).
This book picks up where the previous one left off—more or less. Apathetic London journalist Eric Albright, together with his only friend, Case, a chess-playing drunk, stumbled into Levaal, a land dominated by a huge, white, dragon-shaped castle, where they're called Pilgrims and have certain powers. The castle’s Lord Vous, through the agency of the Arch Mage, is on the verge of becoming a god. Somehow, Vous has created a being, the Shadow, which he fears. This powerful yet enigmatic Shadow wears Eric’s face and has the ability to manifest almost anywhere. Vous’ chief wizard, the Arch Mage, helped destroy the vast Wall dividing this part of Levaal from its southern counterpart, apparently so as to use the evil magic found there for his own purposes. Case finds his way into the skystone, where Vyin, a friendly dragon, transforms him into—something else. Many of the characters—by and large an ill-informed or unreliable bunch, though with a certain presence—converge, by accident or design, on a magical tower. The background features powerful, hostile dragons intent on escaping their ancient imprisonment, demonic Tormentors, various factions involved in a civil war and a (figurative) Pendulum’s existential swing. Elliott’s vision is highly inventive, and he writes attractively clear prose. Indeed, the individual parts fascinate and beguile, but even patient, attentive readers will find themselves groping to understand the overall concept.
The narrative terminates in what might be dubbed an anti-cliffhanger: It just stops, and what it all adds up to, or where it’s going, is anybody’s guess.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3189-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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