A masterful kickoff to a series depicting a fascinating world and the spellbinding characters who inhabit it.
An unlikely duo faces off against a sinister cult and tyrannical rulers in Gilchrist’s dark-fantasy debut and series launch.
In a distant-future dystopian world, fate pushes together black-market recycler Mica Stone and cyborg “mod” Animkii. Mica has somehow escaped captivity from the After Cult, a group convinced that her dreams harbor the portal to another world. Animkii has inexplicably lost her link to the vicious ruling Technocrats who modified her, freeing her of their mind-control and flooding her with pre-mod memories. She becomes infected by “pseudo-metal” biosteel, which consumes her body like a parasite, including, most alarmingly, her remaining flesh. Mica happens to be searching for an old friend, Samiel, who may be able to help reverse Animkii’s infection. Teaming up, the two fend off Technocrats and the After Cult while keeping their heads down in this world’s lowly undercities. Animkii and Mica ultimately run into even more dangerous enemies who threaten the entire world. Gilchrist drops readers into a dense plot already underway, with Mica imprisoned and Animkii and other mods leveling a city. But the author’s razor-sharp descriptions quickly make the bizarre world familiar—nightmares still torment Mica after losing most of her family to a plague years earlier, and Animkii fondly recalls her serene home village. A vibrant cast populates the story: Reptilian hybrids, Dreamers (with their “awful necrotic power”), and beings from the “Other World” emerge as potential allies and menaces. All the while, Gilchrist’s prose limns indelible passages: “Her skin still bore wounds resembling cracks in ice, though the deeper fissures on her arms had already begun to mend themselves, healing at an unnatural pace and leaving behind thin, black scars.” The story ends on a superlative cliffhanger.
A masterful kickoff to a series depicting a fascinating world and the spellbinding characters who inhabit it.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781738061112
Page Count: 357
Publisher: Dystopian Sunrise Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2024
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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