A solid fantasy that wears its spirituality lightly yet effectively.
In McDemott’s (Inspection, 2013, etc.) latest fantasy novel, an embittered warrior leads a revolt against an ethereal enemy enslaving his people and finds himself in a fight for his own soul.
In the lands north of the Black Mountains, there are no free men—only slaves of the overlord Belenus, one of a race of immortals known as the Fay. He taxes the people of Dokrait into poverty, and when they fall short, he demands their children as payment. Although the hard-nosed, single-minded Keiran commands Belenus’ army, he’s no freer than anyone else; his body still has scars from floggings he received during a youth spent in the Fay’s mines. So, with his deputy and only friend, Caél, he plots a rebellion in order to lead his people out of bondage—through the country of their lifelong enemies, the Alamiri, to the Wildheath, an unsettled land that will become their new home. When Belenus pursues the refugees with an army of hobgoblins, Keiran must confront how his impulse toward expediency, rather than justice or mercy, makes him more like his foe than he cares to admit. The leader of a mysterious band of Fay known as the Others soon tells him that the only way forward is by embracing the Eternal One. The plot’s biblical echoes, with its themes of slavery, freedom, obedience and revolt, are no coincidence. McDermott (Inspection, 2013, etc.) bills the novel as both fantasy and Christian fiction, but like C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, the religious undertones are subtle enough to still engage a secular audience (although the epigraph, drawn from the Gospel of Matthew, does tip the author’s hand). No divine fire ignites the plot, but the characters are real enough, with realistic conflicts; Caél, for example, is torn between his duty to his family and to his people, and an Alamiri prisoner, Jarmith, weighs his desire to escape against his responsibility to prevent a murder. The prose also frequently achieves a gentle cleverness, as when a character quips, “I think if I throw myself on Belenus’ mercy, there will be nothing to break my fall.”
A solid fantasy that wears its spirituality lightly yet effectively.Pub Date: May 31, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: SALT Christian Press
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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