Though it duplicates the spirit and intent of the first book, Zettel’s frothy blend of romance and fantasy benefits from...
A hugely intricate and largely beguiling prequel to The Sorcerer's Treason (2002). Beginning in 1872 in a village on Lake Superior, Zettel introduces Ingrid Loftfield, the alienated older sister of Grace, whom she glimpses making a secret rendezvous with a man who seems, and is, more dead than alive. Only the stranger and recent arrival in the village, Avan, seems to have any idea of the power this dead man has on Ingrid’s sister. No mere wanderer, Avan is Avanasy, a sorcerer and teacher to Medeoan, Princess of Isvalta, a medieval Russian fantasy realm that meets our own on the waters of the lake. Avan has been banished to Earth as part of a plot to wed Medeoan, the last surviving sibling and heir to the realm, to Prince Kacha of Hastinapura, a fantasy kingdom reminiscent of Mogul India. Kacha is obviously the wrong guy for Medeoan: though dashing and youthful, he has a withered right hand and disfigured eye that scream evil sorcery. And the plot to start a war with the Chinese kingdom of Hung Tse—to force an alliance that will give Hastinapura power over Isvalta—is doomed. But, alas, Medeoan is a trusting girl with limited spell-casting abilities who doesn’t suspect that the death of her parents might have been induced by the wicked Hastinapura sorcerer, Yamuna. As before, an innocent girl, Ingrid, will have to sail to Isvalta (encountering diabolical denizens, including the ancient witch Baba Yaga and her nightmarish band) to tip the balance of power. She’ll learn that, in Isvalta, spells are weavings that can bind, protect, and entangle. And she’ll meet the father of her daughter Bridget, heroine of the initial installment, as well as of the forthcoming third and last.
Though it duplicates the spirit and intent of the first book, Zettel’s frothy blend of romance and fantasy benefits from more straightforward plotting and tighter command of characters and scenes. The second time’s the charm.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-87442-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003
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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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