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THE BURDEN OF MEMORY

VOLUME II OF THE BLOOD CAEYL MEMORIES

A weird, wonderful installment of a fantasy saga that’s inching toward greatness.

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This sequel to Cole’s (Henry’s Re-entry, 2014, etc.) epic fantasy The Pleasure of Memory (2013) sees disparate members of an ancient order preparing for battle against a villainous fire mage.

The art of magic, which is based on the mysterious Caeyl stones, is dying out in the land of Calevia. Following the events of the previous book, the thieving rogue Beam is also dying, but luckily he has the Caeyllth Blade, which houses the rare Blood Caeyl stone. Inside a vast crypt, his friend Chance Gnoman, along with the Baeldonian giant Jhom, place the physically ravaged Beam inside a tent so that the magic stone can heal him. Elsewhere, another Baeldon named Wenzil interrogates his captive, the Vaemysh Mawby, and learns that they are both members of the Lamys te’Faht (the Eye of the Faithful), part of a lineage of cleric knights who await signs of impending dark times. According to the occult order’s legends, the rise of a Fire Caeyl Mage will herald the end of civilization and the return of the Divinic Demons. It turns out that Prae the Biled, Chance’s nemesis, is that mage, and it’s up to the Lamys te’Faht to halt his demonic army. Sibling smugglers Lucifeus and Malevolus, however, have already caught some Vaemysh trackers on their lands who appear to be demonically possessed, which escalates the war. This second volume of Cole’s saga, like the first, uses dialogue-heavy chapters to illuminate the meticulously crafted corners of his world; one of the most thrilling tells of the exorcism of a demon being. The difference in this installment is that the stakes have risen sharply, and fantasy readers should strap in for a dark, twisted ride—even if most of the narrative merely sets up a potentially more intense third volume. Cole’s prose is evocative, as always; he describes Beam’s injuries, for example, as a “torn map of flesh.” There are also great philosophical moments, as when Wenzil says, “Hope’s a deep well....Sometimes there’s water at the bottom, sometimes there just ain’t.” The very best chapters deal with Beam’s inward journey and expose the startling history of Calevia. Overall, this book offers great rewards for Cole’s loyal readers.

A weird, wonderful installment of a fantasy saga that’s inching toward greatness.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2014

ISBN: 978-0989424974

Page Count: 520

Publisher: Caelstone Press

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015

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THE ALCHEMIST

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind. 

 The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. 

 Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Pub Date: July 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-06-250217-4

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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