This bracing, complex tale pits a fantasy-world version of the Victorian British Empire against a sorcerer-dictator out of...
Ordinary human soldiers face supernatural foes in this first installment of a fantasy series.
Ray’s fiction debut stars a young man named Tammen Gilmot, a private first class in the Dragon Company of the 37th regiment in service to the Verin Empire, sent to the far-flung province of Rakhasin. Tammen is new to the service, having only recently taken the Queen’s Coin and shipped out to the frontier. He joins the unit of a legendary commander, Capt. Hoskaaner, known as the Statue Man, who initially seems like an ageless holdover from the old days when Elves still intermingled with human empires. As one seasoned soldier complacently informs Tammen: “You can’t expect things to be orderly where there’s wyrding involved.” The disappearance of the Elves has left a power imbalance that’s allowed the kingdom of Gedlund, led by an immortal witch king named Thyesten, to flourish and threaten the Verin Empire with supernatural forces such as weaponized sorcery and goblin shock troops. Early on, Tammen faces the fierce goblins (“Though he’d read of them, seen sketches in books, and even caricatures in the paper, none of that left him quite prepared for his first sight of the goblin warriors. They were much shorter than men, but their hunched run gave him little sense of size as they darted through the waving grass. Their broad olive faces were streaked in white paint”). This promising first volume mainly tells the story of Tammen’s coming-of-age as both a young man and a soldier. Ray shifts easily among scenes of campfire camaraderie and well-executed action sequences in which the Verin rifles, artillery, and bayonets go up against the swords and sorcery of their Rakhasin enemies and others. Tammen, ostracized for much of his youth because of his intellect and formal education, finds in Dragon Company unexpected friendships under fire, and his newcomer status on the frontier gives Ray a ready-made vehicle for introducing readers to the refreshingly intricate back stories of Gedlund, Verin, and the magic wars that have grown in ferocity since the departure of the Elves from the world. The book’s dialogue crackles with authenticity, its characters are unfailingly well-drawn, and although its pacing can be uneven at times, its complicated systems—political and magical—are satisfyingly multilayered.
Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 493
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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