Solidly engrossing, if too dependent on luck and coincidence, with a robust and consistent backdrop: a satisfyingly...
Following his fine Archform: Beauty (p. 625), Modesitt kicks off a new series that, like the Recluce yarns, curiously but plausibly blends fantasy and SF. The Herders of the Iron Valleys in the north of the continent Corus tend their nightsheep on huge, rocky estates. Inedible nightsheep are the source of nightsilk, a miraculous fiber that's light, soft, and tough enough to turn a bullet. Herders like young Alucius also have, secretly, Talent (psychic abilities that help them survive against the deadly local fauna)—secret because, long ago, a great war involving Talent destroyed civilization. Today the Iron Valleys are threatened by neighboring Madrien, a matriarchy whose immortal Matrial enslaves rivals and captives through Talent-powered collars. So, leaving behind his betrothed, Wendra, and grandfather Royalt to tend the estate (his father died in battle), Alucius joins the militia and rides off to fight the Matrites. Despite his Talent and skills acquired from Royalt, Alucius and his fellow troopers are overwhelmed by superior numbers and an ancient weapon that hurls lethal volleys of glass spears. Wounded and captured, a collar clamped about his neck, Alucius must fight for the Matrial as a trooper against the encroaching Lanacronans. Again he survives and gains promotion. But then one of the soarers, seemingly intelligent flyers of feminine aspect, advises Alucius that he must soon find a way to free himself and defeat the Matrial, a threat to all sentient creatures.
Solidly engrossing, if too dependent on luck and coincidence, with a robust and consistent backdrop: a satisfyingly self-contained inaugural volume that skillfully sets up the sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-765-30561-5
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
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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