The personal touches—the relationships between characters—make this fantasy stand out and give a shade more meaning to...
Ross (The Midnight Sea, 2016, etc.) continues the epic tale of a young woman determined to find justice amid the chaos of an empire beset by undead dangers and corruption.
In the first novel of the Fourth Element series, Nazafareen, a brave, young woman who’s a member of the empire’s elite fighting force called the Water Dogs, and Darius, her powerful daeva (a bound demon who kills the undead), were accused of treason and imprisoned. With help, they managed to escape. In this second installment, they now seek the Prophet Zarathustra, long believed to be dead. If they can find him in time, they just might save the city of Persepolae and, with it, Darius’ mother, long held captive by its king. If they are very lucky, the prophet might also reveal the meaning behind the strange power growing within Nazafareen. It will be no easy task, however. The necromancer Balthazar also seeks the prophet, at the behest of his Undead Queen, Neblis. Meanwhile, King Alexander marches across the lands, waging war. The fates of both humans and Immortals are at stake, but if Nazafareen and Darius can’t convince them to unite—in spite of centuries of slavery, abuse, and resentment—then they all might die at the hands of Neblis and her armies of undead Druj. The stakes have risen in this sequel, but personal connections are still the heart of the story, from Darius’ relationship with his mother to the tragic tale of spurned lovers that set dark events in motion ages ago. Ironically, although the events in this book are more epic than those in the previous one, the personal moments shine through more clearly, perhaps because the links between these world-shaking occurrences and the individual grudges that started them are brought more into the light. It’s always refreshing to enjoy a story where well-drawn characters are so central to the events of the plot rather than feeling tacked on. The one disappointing note is that the villains of the piece are not getting as much attention in terms of motivation, which makes them less convincing and less interesting.
The personal touches—the relationships between characters—make this fantasy stand out and give a shade more meaning to monumental events than is usually found in the genre.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 289
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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