This enjoyable fantasy invites fans to the literary equivalent of rolling the dice with friends.
In this fantasy sequel, a monarch continues to dictate the epic exploits of his life to a scribe.
King Elberon, about to celebrate his 65th birthday, sits on the Coral Throne in Tradewind City. The Astral Telescope has revealed that he’ll live to be 130 years old, but he’ll die in the bathroom rather than on the battlefield. Then again, Elberon may perish when the elf Lithaine, a former battle partner, arrives with an army in revenge for using him to “seal the breach between Hell and Woerth.” Elberon relates his life experiences to a scribe, recounting the mission in Hell with his warrior companions that resulted in a roll of the Fire Die, at Beelzebub’s behest, which selected Lithaine for imprisonment. Other major events remembered by the king include the Fall of Helene, an all-out war against Lord Eckberd the Pestilent; the rescue of Melinda the Blade, Elberon’s ex-wife, from Hell; and the Battle of Faerie Wood against the alien Crimson Hand. The monarch recalls that he, Lithaine, and the others in their party, Sir Malcolm the elf and Amabored the barbarian, had the overarching mission to stop Koschei the Deathless from returning to Woerth. To that end, they collected Koschei’s 10 powerful Phylaxes (or artifacts), such as the Mace of Malice and the Fell Phallus, to limit the dark lord’s reach. As Elberon explores his past, ruminating on deep personal regrets becomes unavoidable. He left Melinda for the shield maiden Cassiopeia of Collanna only to watch his second wife waste away from the disease known as “the creep.”
Ferguson strides high on his love for classic rock and tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons in this extravagant sequel. As fans of the previous volume, The Screaming Skull (2018), will remember, Elberon and company live and breathe enough debauchery to impress Mötley Crüe biographer Neil Strauss. Cassie, in perhaps the tamest example, asks Elberon: “What is it about good sex that makes you have to take a crap?” Ferguson’s imagination delivers a consistent deluge of outré concepts, like sex cannibals, but also devices useful to the plot, including “a rope ladder leading to an extradimensional panic room.” There are also music and film references aplenty sprinkled throughout, inserted for comedic effect if nothing else, as when Lithaine quotes Ripley from the film Aliens with the line “I say we nuke the site from orbit.” The most grounded and successful portion of the story is the depiction of Cassie’s illness and death. The cancerlike creep doesn’t allow for magical resurrections and causes the deterioration of body and mind. Here, the author drains all the overcooked bawdiness from his prose and creates genuine dramatic stakes that don’t exist elsewhere in the novel. Cassie has “skin like tissue paper” and the “shrunken limbs of an old woman,” images that are hard to digest whether readers remember a loved one’s illness or not. Frequently, the engaging adventure is chopped into nonlinear episodes, and it soon becomes clear that Elberon’s remembrances will carry readers into the next volume. Wherever the series goes next, fans will likely crave a smoother forward momentum and fewer curse-laden dungeon crawls.
This enjoyable fantasy invites fans to the literary equivalent of rolling the dice with friends.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73256-623-1
Page Count: 506
Publisher: Mr. Phabulous, LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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