A playful, action-packed alternate history tale.
This fantasy debut finds a Roman legion battling a dragon at Carthage in 147 B.C.E.
Regulus Marcus Atilius is the supreme commander of Rome’s 7th Legion. He and his second-in-command, Gen. Han Xing, have stationed their forces outside of fortified Carthage, attempting to crush the empire’s longtime enemy. Han’s spies discover that the Carthaginians plan to sacrifice infants during the full moon to access power from a dark god. Disgusted, Regulus is determined to stop the ritual. An eight-man team of combat specialists infiltrates Carthage through its sewers and attacks the chambers of Asdrubal, high priest of Baal. Though the band rescues a slave, Miriam, and her infant son, Issur, the Romans ultimately fail to stop other sacrifices. A magical storm delivers a dragon, which Asdrubal controls mentally. Never one to lead from the back, Regulus joins the fray and is burned badly by the dragon’s fire. The legion itself nearly succumbs to the beast until Othniyel, a Jewish soldier, blows his shofar, a trumpet that can “engage dark forces.” The shofar, combined with physical assaults, sends Asdrubal and the dragon into temporary retreat. Meanwhile, Regulus convalesces with the aid of Miriam’s honey potion and singing. His dream of the Prophet Eliasz (Elijah) is no coincidence, and the leader begins training to fight a more spiritual war. In this energetic novel, Ellis gives readers exactly what his title advertises, aided by crackling narrative turns and historical details. During philosophical moments, his prose can be effectively blunt, as when Han asserts: “What we worship determines who we are and can become. Or perhaps it works the other way.” The dragon, always thrillingly depicted, is “like bombardier beetles,” creating “hydrogen peroxide and other explosive gases inside his body...to produce a boiling, toxic blaze.” The author emphasizes that Regulus and his legion adopt the best from every culture, and this openness carries the day. Light romantic touches round out the narrative, and a winking final line should make even hardened genre fans smile while clamoring for a sequel.
A playful, action-packed alternate history tale.Pub Date: March 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-09930-8
Page Count: 293
Publisher: Altar Stone Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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