by Robin Hobb ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2012
By the end, little has changed and few answers have been found, but the time spent with the characters never seems like a...
The third book in the Rain Wilds Chronicles is a leisurely journey to nowhere, but its well-drawn characters and intriguing setting make it worth the trip.
Set, as are many of fantasy maven Hobb’s (Dragon Haven, 2010, etc.) novels, in the Realm of the Elderlings, the story picks up as a group of dragons and their human keepers are settling in near the ancient city of Kelsingra. Once inhabited by dragons and Elderlings, a race of humans transformed to be dragon companions, Kelsingra lies dormant, waiting to be rediscovered by the fledgling dragons, who are still learning to fly. The keepers deal with a range of interpersonal dramas, while down the river from Kelsingra, various factions conspire to exploit the dragons and their ancestral home for financial and political gain. Hobb takes time to explore numerous characters in her sprawling cast, and thus the plot moves at a very slow pace, even though there are several important discoveries. Anyone hoping for resolution or significant advancement from the story will be disappointed, but Hobb tempers that frustration by delving deeply into her characters’ lives, using the rigid customs of the fantasy world to explore universal ideas about social pressures and romantic longing. The author is especially adept at examining the roles of women, whether through nervous teenage dragon-keeper Thymara’s trying to balance two jealous suitors or Elderling Malta’s struggles to bring a child to term. Their dilemmas are specific to the world of the novel, but the real-life resonance gives the story extra depth. The resurgence of the dragon species is vital, but no more so than men and women figuring out how to relate to one another.
By the end, little has changed and few answers have been found, but the time spent with the characters never seems like a waste. Bring on the next installment.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-156163-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
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by Robin Hobb & Megan Lindholm
by TJ Klune ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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PERSPECTIVES
by Erin Morgenstern ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2011
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.
Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.
The world’s not big enough for two wizards, as Tolkien taught us—even if that world is the shiny, modern one of the late 19th century, with its streetcars and electric lights and newfangled horseless carriages. Yet, as first-time novelist Morgenstern imagines it, two wizards there are, if likely possessed of more legerdemain than true conjuring powers, and these two are jealous of their turf. It stands to reason, the laws of the universe working thus, that their children would meet and, rather than continue the feud into a new generation, would instead fall in love. Call it Romeo and Juliet for the Gilded Age, save that Morgenstern has her eye on a different Shakespearean text, The Tempest; says a fellow called Prospero to young magician Celia of the name her mother gave her, “She should have named you Miranda...I suppose she was not clever enough to think of it.” Celia is clever, however, a born magician, and eventually a big hit at the Circus of Dreams, which operates, naturally, only at night and has a slightly sinister air about it. But what would you expect of a yarn one of whose chief setting-things-into-action characters is known as “the man in the grey suit”? Morgenstern treads into Harry Potter territory, but though the chief audience for both Rowling and this tale will probably comprise of teenage girls, there are only superficial genre similarities. True, Celia’s magical powers grow, and the ordinary presto-change-o stuff gains potency—and, happily, surrealistic value. Finally, though, all the magic has deadly consequence, and it is then that the tale begins to take on the contours of a dark thriller, all told in a confident voice that is often quite poetic, as when the man in the grey suit tells us, “There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.”
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-53463-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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