The future-fantasy world of Greensky — where a race called Kindar, clad in winged shubas, practice daily ceremonies of Love, Peace and Joy in their grundtree-top nid-places and children in the Garden exercise the skills of pensing, teleporting and grunspreking — is a long way from Snyder's usual contemporary settings, but the concerns and attitudes expressed here are less remote. Settled by survivors from another world destroyed by war, Greensky is a vegetarian society where the words hate and kill do not exist and the only threat is from the dreaded Pash-shan who live below the root and who capture and enslave babies and occasional adults who fall or venture to the forest floor. Lately however the protective vine is withering, citizens fall ill of the Wasting or overindulge in Berry-dreaming, and thirteen-year-old Raamo D'ok, unusually gifted in spirit-power and newly chosen to join the ruling priestly Ol-zhaan, finds suspicion and subterfuge even in the inner sanctums. But where until recent years the hero might have led a glorious victory over the Pash-shan or at least uncovered a plot between them and certain of the Ol-zhaan, here Raamo, alerted by a suspicious older novice named Neric and aided by his female counterpart Genaa, discovers that the dwellers below the root are not monsters after all but exiled Kindar who had become too curious about the forest floor and the secrets of their guardian priests. Greensky is a bit too ritualized and bloodless for our taste and we miss the stronger personalities of Snyder's previous, less highly evolved characters, but as revisionist fantasy this is worth the trip.
Pub Date: March 12, 1975
ISBN: 0595370314
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations.
Magic, mystery, and love intertwine and invite in this newest take on the “enchanted circus” trope.
Sisters raised by their abusive father, a governor of a colonial backwater in a world vaguely reminiscent of the late 18th century, Scarlett and Donatella each long for something more. Scarlett, olive-skinned, dark of hair and attitude, longs for Caraval, the fabled, magical circus helmed by the possibly evil Master Legend Santos, while blonde, sunny Tella finds comfort in drink and the embraces of various men. A slightly awkward start, with inconsistencies of attitude and setting, rapidly smooths out when they, along with handsome “golden-brown” sailor Julian, flee to Caraval on the eve of Scarlett’s arranged marriage. Tella disappears, and Scarlett must navigate a nighttime world of magic to find her. Caraval delights the senses: beautiful and scary, described in luscious prose, this is a show readers will wish they could enter. Dresses can be purchased for secrets or days of life; clocks can become doors; bridges move: this is an inventive and original circus, laced with an edge of horror. A double love story, one sensual romance and the other sisterly loyalty, anchors the plot, but the real star here is Caraval and its secrets.
Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations. (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-09525-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Truly fantastic.
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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