A treat for fans of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Shaolin-style mayhem.
A fresh installment in Jin Yong’s Legends of the Condor Heroes saga.
“It is no mean feat to come through the forest at night without getting lost,” quoth a mysterious old fellow, speaking with Jin Yong’s hero, Guo Jing. True enough, especially given that before even attempting to cross the woods, Guo Jing and his fellow martial artist Lotus Huang have had to battle their way past a skillful fighter-cum-sorceress named Madam Ying (“If it were not for the Competing Hands technique, which gave him the ability to cast two unrelated kung fu moves at the same time, he would have taken a nasty hit or two”) and outrun the Iron Palm Gang. All that comes in just the first signature of this fast-paced yarn. There’s much more: As the two wage war against a very bad fellow meaningfully named Viper Ouyang, they realize that they’re sweet on each other. Allowing for a plot-twisting misunderstanding or two, the lovebirds are a natural pair, capable of subduing entire empires: “I’ve got a present for you,” says Lotus. “What is it?” asks Guo Jing. “The city of Samarkand,” she replies. It helps that the two have the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan behind them, another happy relationship that involves a big backstory and all manner of diplomacy; as the story closes, Guo Jing takes a few moments to ask the dying Khan, “What is the point of occupying so much land, killing so many people and sowing so much misery?” The fierce Genghis doesn’t have much to say in response, but he might have said, “Well, it’s what I do.” There’s more adventure awaiting our happy couple, with the author's trademark fists of fury and set-piece martial scenes piled on thick in this volume. It’s all good fun, though the plot sometimes seems contrived simply to provide an excuse for throwing punches with names like Haughty Dragon Repents and Cascading Peach Blossom Palm.
A treat for fans of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Shaolin-style mayhem.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2502-5013-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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