While this volume lacks the action sequences and high drama of its predecessors, Hearn continues to explore issues of fate,...
The third installment of Hearn's four-part series about mythical medieval Japan offers a relatively less violent hiatus while characters recover from—or succumb to—the emotional, spiritual, and political upheavals they survived in the previous episodes (Dragon Child, 2016, etc.) before they confront their destinies in the final volume.
Yoshi, the hidden emperor, is now a teenager ensconced with a band of acrobats and in love with Kai, who is carrying his child. He both recognizes and fears his destined role as emperor. Yoshi’s supporter and the series' hero, Shika, who went from orphaned noble’s son to outlaw to avenging warrior with supernatural powers in the previous volumes, is now hiding in the Darkwood mourning the death of his great love, the Autumn Princess, and unable to remove the magical deer mask created for him by a sorcerer. Without Shika’s guidance, the superhuman brothers of the Spider Tribe, born to the sorceress Lady Tora, have grown into semihuman adults whose lack of feelings makes them frighteningly amoral and powerful. The Miboshi clan’s Lord Aritomo, who supports the false emperor Daigen, mourns his closest friend Takaakira, who died after announcing that Yoshi should be emperor. Takaakira had loved and protected Hina, daughter of Lord Aritomo’s enemy, the Kuromori lord. Having escaped death herself, Hina’s journey becomes the heart of this novel as she interacts with most of the novel’s other characters either directly or indirectly. Still a child, Hina comes under the protection of Lady Fuji, who runs the pleasure boats and took in Yoshi and Kai in the previous novel. Lady Fuji hides Hina in a temple for women where the Abbess turns out to be Shika’s mother. Though Hina, who had a childhood crush on Shika, does not meet him in this novel, there are hints that their relationship may become pivotal.
While this volume lacks the action sequences and high drama of its predecessors, Hearn continues to explore issues of fate, love, moral failure, and moral redemption through characters both archetypal and heartbreakingly believable.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-53633-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
