An impassioned fantasy tale but one that’s too dense with characters.
In the second installment of Shepherd’s (Fall from Grace, 2014) mythical fantasy series, demons wage a mortal war against elves while an exiled goddess makes a bid for a throne.
Exiled angels and demons are no longer welcome in the Sixty Realms, so they govern their own societies. So when it’s clear that demons have breached the elves’ borders, something needs to be done. Iykva, like other demons, craves war with angels’ “earthen children” as the first step in a fight against the angels themselves. Hence, the king of the angels, Wisterian, works out a truce with the king of the demons (and the first vampire), Jamiason; they agree that vampires and demons may drink the blood of whomever they please, but only after giving the elf prince, Iladrul, 15 summers to mature and build an army. The truce unfortunately doesn’t last long, and soon the fairy God Aiken must choose a side. Meanwhile, Lady Lucias makes a deal with Loki at Lucias’ cottage: she offers to bear his children, as she can breed archangels. Her true agenda, however, is to assemble a Quorum of archangels in an attempt to grab a currently open position next to Noliminan, the king of lords. As the war rages on, Lucias’ son, Ishitar, makes a decision that will change everything. This novel is tightly packed with characters, many boasting lofty back stories. There’s also plenty of melodramatic tension; even the archangel of death, Azrael, who can only be seen and heard by Ishitar, isn’t immune from powerful emotion, as he ultimately reveals his love for someone. There are few action scenes, but this is the essence of Shepherd’s tale, as Lucias equates what she’s doing to the chesslike board game kings’ castle; similarly, what matters in this book aren’t the battles (which are typically shown in their aftermaths) but the moves that characters make to get to them. That said, there’s so much happening that some characters get lost; for example, Lucias and Loki’s children—who have fascinating, instantly familiar names such as Gorgon and Djinn—don’t hold much significance. Nevertheless, this series is far from over, and someone’s bound to take the narrative reins in a later book.
An impassioned fantasy tale but one that’s too dense with characters.Pub Date: June 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-692-02340-2
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Mythos Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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