As good as or better than the opener. Grab.
Second installment of an evocative Victorian gothic (“supranatural”) fantasy trilogy, following The Oversight (2014).
In London, the Oversight, a secret society, patrols the borders between the mundane and the magical. To the original membership, now sadly reduced in numbers, Fletcher introduces new allies—and new challenges. At the end of the previous book, Sara Falk, a “Glint” (she can view past events by touching objects associated with them), entered a terrifying mirror-maze in search of missing sentinel Mr. Sharp, and both find themselves battling vampirical Mirror Wights and the treacherous Elizabethan magician Dr. John Dee. Newcomer Caitlin Sean ná Gaolaire, a “venatrix” (a sort of freelance magical hunter), holds a commission to locate and return a stolen child and agrees to work with the Oversight in exchange for help and information—although her relentless stage-Irishness rapidly grows irksome. Meanwhile, the Sluagh, an ancient native race, hemmed in by iron railway lines they cannot cross, seek to nullify their aversion to iron—and sociopathic wizard-scientist Viscount Mountfellon holds the key. The Ghost of the Itch Ward, an insane telepathic woman, intends to kill Mountfellon. But why? Who is, or was, she? And mute telepath and runaway adoptee Amos Templebane, appealingly and genuinely innocent, gets exploited by everybody. This is a thoughtfully dense, fully realized construct where, intriguingly, the characters are defined by their deeds as much as their intrinsic personalities, and where the creepy and sometimes-claustrophobic atmosphere, horrific doings, and unstoppable narrative momentum overwhelm the occasional weaknesses in plot and procedure. Best of all, you never know where it’s going next.
As good as or better than the opener. Grab.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-27954-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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