Slow to start and drearily didactic in places, but Modesitt's capacity to wring new surprises from stock ideas remains...
The prolific Modesitt (Mage-Guard of Hamor, 2008, etc.) kicks off a new fantasy series that boasts an early modern setting—think Victorian times without the pollution.
Rhennthyl, the son of a leading wool merchant in L'Excelsis, the capital of Solidar, had no interest in the wool trade and apprenticed himself to portraiture Master Caliostrus. Now a skilled journeyman, young Rhenn involuntarily uses magic (“imaging”) to complete exceptionally difficult assignments. But while he considers attempting to become a master artisan, the studio erupts in flames, killing Caliostrus and his obnoxious son—a catastrophe that Rhenn worries he might have caused through his unconscious imaging abilities. No other studio will take him on, so he has no choice but to apply to the Collegium on Imagisle in hopes of becoming an imager. Accepted by the secretive Master Dichartyn, Rhenn learns that imagers must live apart from the rest of society—even sleeping alone in lead-lined rooms because they can accidentally image even while asleep. Dichartyn hits Rhenn with a crash course in politics, philosophy and physical training. Rhenn learns how to create shields against both magic and physical objects, and soon his abilities match those of imagers who've been on Imagisle for years. As the pace picks up, Rhenn meets beautiful and graceful Seliora, who's gifted with second sight, and deals—brutally—with two young imager bullies. Finally, while dodging assassins' bullets, not always successfully, he discovers what Dichartyn really intends for him.
Slow to start and drearily didactic in places, but Modesitt's capacity to wring new surprises from stock ideas remains undiminished.Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2034-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
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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