The barrage of names and places can be hard to follow, but the fluid prose and morally ambiguous characters are magically...
Hearn’s brand of Asian fantasy fiction is a genre unto itself; having completed her Tales of the Otori (Heaven’s Net Is Wide, 2007, etc.), the pseudonymous Hearn begins her new series, The Tale of Shikanoko, by introducing the primary characters while setting up conflicts and relationships that will evolve in the three volumes to follow, all to be published this year.
It is “a time of troubles and opportunities.” As the weak emperor nears death, his two sons jockey for power, each with his own followers. The title character, who threads through the book connecting disparate stories and dynasties, begins life as Kazumaru, son of a vassal to Lord Kiyoyori, whose allegiance lies with the emperor’s older son, the crown prince. Fatherless at 7, Kazumaru escapes a murderous uncle/guardian at 16 to land in a sorcerer’s lair, where he receives a magical mask and is renamed Shikanoko, “the deer’s child.” He finds work with a mountain bandit whose companion is beautiful Lady Tora, with whom Shikanoko believes he had carnal relations under the sorcerer’s spell. Meanwhile Lord Kiyoyori, a widower with one daughter, Hina, follows his father’s command to unite the Kuromori and Matsutani dynasties by taking his younger brother’s wife, Lady Tama, as his own, though neither he nor his brother desire the change. Although Tama bears Kiyoyori a son, he distrusts her loyalty, especially after foiling an assassination attempt by the mountain bandits thanks to his “wise man” Sesshin. Kiyoyori, who has fallen madly in love with Lady Tora, allows Shikanoko to study with Sesshin, but Tama banishes them in a fit of panicky anger when her son disappears. Shikanoko ends up under the control of the Prince-Abbot, the emperor’s brother-in-law. When war breaks out after the emperor’s death, the crown prince’s young son, Yoshi, goes into hiding with Aki, his foster father's daughter. As Kiyoyori sadly recognizes in his world, children are pawns in the quest for power.
The barrage of names and places can be hard to follow, but the fluid prose and morally ambiguous characters are magically seductive.Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-53631-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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