We now owe another debt to Shakespeare, and one to Haig, for re-imagining a tragic masterpiece with such wit, force...
Literary influence is neatly reconfigured in the English author’s second novel (after The Last Family in England, 2005), in which an 11-year-old schoolboy is commanded to seek revenge by the ghost of his murdered father.
“Dad’s ghost” appears to Philip Noble, not on the battlements at Elsinore, but at the family-operated Castle and Falcon Pub, where mourners gather following his funeral. The spirit explains that his apparently accidental death in a car crash was in fact engineered by Philip’s paternal Uncle Alan, an auto-dealer who has designs on Philip’s now conveniently widowed Mum. Dad’s ghost also explains the unhappy fellowship of the title group, whose members hover, unavenged and restless, between the dead and the living—while spurring the reluctant Philip to action, evoking from the boy reactions that astound his family, teachers and schoolmates, and even the forthright older girl (Leah), who matter-of-factly declares him her boyfriend. An act of violence (though not the one intended) ensues, and the embattled Philip—whose unpunctuated, edgy narration is an utter delight—even does some hasty growing up. Haig rather overworks the pattern of carefully spaced allusions to Hamlet (e.g., mischief-making tins Ross and Gary; pronouncing the wonderfully slimy Uncle Alan a “smiling damned villain”). But there are nice characterizations of Philip’s Mum (so needing to be loved that she’s blind to her brother-in-law’s stratagems) and his sympathetic teacher Mrs. Fell, whose practiced niceness does not cloud her keen understanding of boyish bravado and secrecy. The author also makes effective use of the image of Hadrian’s Wall (which occasions a class trip and essay subject) and to its reputation as a barrier between civilization and savagery. As such, it also embodies Philip’s quite credible vacillations between obedience and moral choice.
We now owe another debt to Shakespeare, and one to Haig, for re-imagining a tragic masterpiece with such wit, force and—yes—originality.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2007
ISBN: 0-670-03833-4
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2006
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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