A brilliantly imagined and transportive collection of surreal bedtime stories.
A writer conjures tales in response to an artist’s surreal images in this collaboration by Golden and Owens.
A girl who was born mid-flight—not on a plane, but to a winged mother—can never sit still but instead feels compelled to swim constantly through the air in the story “The Itinerant.” In “The Mainer,” a shipwrecked cabin boy is swallowed by a whale, only to have a strange sense of déjà vu. A princess, in “The Sister,” demands her servants make her a doll replica of the twin she absorbed in the womb, while her old brother communicates with the ghost of the subsumed twin to plot revenge. In these fabulist micro-fictions, Owens introduces readers to such otherworldly characters as the Town Crier, the Mischief Maker, the Lunar King, and the Handmaiden. Each is inspired by the accompanying portrait made by artist Golden, whose surreal visages evoke rich personalities and vast worlds. The Scout, for example, has a spotted, river-stone-shaped head of midnight blue, wearing a crown reminiscent of fingerling potatoes, held up by a neck that might have been made for an ornate porcelain vase. “The Scout floats suspended at the center of The Constant Sphere,” begins Owens’ accompanying story, “gazing into a seamless 360 degree spinning cyclorama of the heavens crafted by winged innocents.” Golden’s images are arresting: The textures suggest analog sensibilities of an earlier era, and while there’s rarely a traditional face to be found, there’s always the suggestion of a thoroughly human countenance. They’re complemented by Owens’ dark, dreamy fairy tales in the tradition of Russell Edson, Donald Barthelme, and Lydia Davis. Just as Golden’s collages bring together disparate materials, Owens’ stories take a number of different forms and voices, each one resetting readers’ expectations for what a story might be. The final character, the Storyteller, reveals that he works in a “story bank, ever echoing with tens of thousands of nearly subaudible voices constantly murmuring….” These murmurings effectively follow readers through the book—and may do so for quite a while afterward.
A brilliantly imagined and transportive collection of surreal bedtime stories.Pub Date: April 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781736516768
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Animal Heart Press
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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