Epic fantasy fans listen up: This is the good stuff. Highly recommended.
The first installment of Ford’s Age of Uprising saga is unadulterated epic fantasy set in an aetherpunk realm where the mining and innovative utilization of magic-powered pyrestones have made the nation of Torwyn a virtual empire of industry.
The guilds rule Torwyn—and have for generations. Although newly crowned Emperor Sullivar reigns over the realm, it’s the various guilds that are the lifeblood of the nation—controlling the military, transit, mining, farming, etc. But when an emissary from Malador—a country that has been enemies with Torwyn for thousands of years—attending Sullivar’s coronation and with a potential peace treaty in the balance is assassinated and Fulren, Sullivar's young nephew, is falsely accused and essentially sentenced to death by being sent to Malador for punishment, Fulren’s mother, Rosomon Hawkspur, realizes treachery is afoot. As fanatics from the Draconate Ministry, Torwyn’s ecclesiastic power, begin a masterfully planned coup, Rosomon and her children—who are scattered throughout the realm—attempt to stop the rebellion. Conall, a captain in the military, is stationed at a remote outpost; Tyreta, Rosomon’s responsibility-shirking daughter, is visiting mining operations in the wild Sundered Isles; and Fulren, now a prisoner in an enemy land, attempts to stay alive long enough to unravel the conspiratorial mystery. Narrated from multiple points of view, the novel fully displays Ford’s ability to create dynamic and emotionally connective characters. Additionally, his ability to write and twist together numerous plot threads and have each one feel like the primary narrative makes this grand-scale tale seem less bloated and unwieldy. Although some sequences early on feel a bit contrived, once this mammoth novel gains momentum, readers should disregard this minor flaw and find themselves fully immersed in a story that features a virtual toy chest full of fantasy delights, including magic-powered land- and airships, demon lords, sentient goat-headed beasts, war eagles, pirates, and deified wyrms.
Epic fantasy fans listen up: This is the good stuff. Highly recommended.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-62956-0
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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