Top-notch adventure fantasy—a stand-up-and-applaud debut.
Naslund’s stellar debut novel—and first installment in his Dragons of Terra saga—revolves around an exciting new fantasy hero who, exiled and essentially sentenced to death as a dragonslayer, is finding it increasingly difficult to die.
Silas Bershad, aka the Flawless Bershad, is a legend throughout the kingdoms of Terra. Accused by the king of Almira of committing horrific crimes and ritualistically tattooed as an outcast thereafter, Bershad has wandered the countryside with his sidekick, Rowan, and his trusty donkey hunting dragons for the last 14 years. While most sentenced to dragonslaying die battling their first beast, Bershad has killed 66 dragons and has become an unkillable folk hero of sorts. His miserable nomadic existence changes, however, when he agrees—at the behest of Ashlyn, the king’s daughter and his former lover,—to embark on a perilous mission: to sail across the sea to the enemy nation of Balaria to rescue the king’s other daughter, Kira, who has been kidnapped, and assassinate the emperor. But although the journey is filled with constant peril, Bershad begins to finally understand himself and his place in the world. Discoveries abound, particularly concerning his body’s strange penchant for healing seemingly deadly wounds. Featuring a multiple point-of-view narrative that includes a rich diversity of characters—Bershad, Princess Ashlyn, an assassin named Garret, an apprentice alchemist named Jolan, among others—many aspects of this story are noteworthy. The worldbuilding, for example, is simply extraordinary. The dichotomy between the primitive realm of Almira and the technologically advanced kingdom of Balaria is striking, and the author’s focus on dragons and their deep, almost mystical connection to the world’s balance and well-being give the story a profound undertone. The characters are well developed and original, and the bombshell revelations at novel’s end are immensely satisfying. A few predictable subplots notwithstanding, Naslund succeeds in creating a page-turning, edge-of-your-seat read that breathes new (fiery) life into dragon mythology.
Top-notch adventure fantasy—a stand-up-and-applaud debut.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30964-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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
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