A beguiling fable that’s full of rich whimsy with a thoughtful bite.
Mysterious radio broadcasts from the past are among the spooky goings-on roiling a corner of the Missouri Ozarks in this fantasy.
Tall’s novel centers on KSR, a pirate radio station whose Saturday-night broadcasts in the vicinity of Joplin, Missouri, feature uncannily accurate present-day weather forecasts, hit-parade songs, St. Louis Cardinals games from the 1960s, sermons of the long-dead Rev. Franklin L. Hewitt from the 1930s, and “air traffic control for a mysterious WWII airfield.” Federal agencies have tried and failed to locate and silence the station, whose signal seems to emanate from an area called the Spirit Valley, which includes an abandoned airstrip, the village of West Bobcat, a rain tank that amplifies a disembodied voice, a creepy forest, and invisible spirit beings known as Nunnehi in Cherokee legend. Tall’s narrative wanders back and forth over decades, telling the loosely integrated stories of characters around the Spirit Valley. They include Charles J. Howell, a Cherokee man who has visions of a spectral old man; his buddy E.J., who hires on a slate of untalented local musicians to scare tourists from his diner; Jake, a government paranormal investigator; Sylvie T., a teenage mind reader; Merlie, an unhoused woman in New York City who picks up KSR on her radio and is drawn to West Bobcat; and even a rooster. Tall’s yarn enfolds readers in a world of magical realism where supernatural occurrences and astral adventures are a prosaic part of life; one plangent arc follows the Rev. Franklin’s ghostly wanderings after his death in 1934, complete with socially awkward encounters with the living. Tall’s writing features colorful characters who stay grounded amid the supernaturalism and sly humor and prose whose deadpan matter-of-factness shades into poetry: “The ghosts were crazy in a big city. They paced overhead across long hallways; they lurked in laundry rooms and cried ‘Help me!’ They stared through walls and knew what you were doing.” The result is a fun tall tale that’s also a resonant meditation on the magic of an iconic American landscape.
A beguiling fable that’s full of rich whimsy with a thoughtful bite.Pub Date: June 3, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-8339-7986-0
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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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