A lively, entertaining time-travel tale that nicely blends history, myth, and adventure.
In this YA middle-grade fantasy adventure, two time-traveling twins must help defend Vikings against a fearsome dragon.
In this follow-up to The Order of Time (2020), 12-year-old twins Anastasia and Edward Upston and their mentor, Dr. Alfred Gregorian, must answer serious charges from the secret Order of Time, who are time-traveling guardians of history. By preventing Pharaoh Akhenaten’s assassination, the three defendants broke several important rules. A hearing in London goes well; the twins get the chance to be trained and join the Order someday if they pass the entrance exam. A treacherous element in the Order, however, makes the twins’ time-travel test go badly awry, and they find themselves stranded in medieval Denmark. The Vikings they meet, including Erik the Red, explain that they’re in desperate danger from the dragon Nidhogg and his undead army. The only way to defeat them, a shaman says, is to have the broken blade Lykill reforged by its dwarf makers and to reconnoiter the dragon’s lair to discover his weakness; Anastasia joins the first mission and Edward, the second. As the Vikings will face a fierce series of battles, will the travelers complete their tasks in time? In his second series installment, Southall appealingly offers several intriguing elements in addition to the time travel that drives the action. In particular, the secret society with its clandestine procedures, fancy secret locations, centuries-old members, and nifty relics is great fun, as is the school that Anastasia and Edward hope to attend, which offers such fascinating subjects as Preservation of Powerful Artifacts. The twins’ quests are packed with exciting scenes of journeying, discovering, and battling. It should be noted that there’s a fairly significant plot hole involving the twins’ ability to speak and read Norse, but it won’t detract from readers’ enjoyment of the story.
A lively, entertaining time-travel tale that nicely blends history, myth, and adventure.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 311
Publisher: Seaview Press Holdings
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
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