A slow-moving sequel to Tolan’s Welcome to the Ark (1996) in which Elijah, a young African-American empath who has escaped from a juvenile mental health facility in the Adirondacks, becomes entangled in a domestic terrorist organization. This projected second in a trilogy about the Ark kids follows Elijah after the breakup of the Ark, the therapeutic group home for child prodigies. An Ark kid is a child with special psychic powers who can link with other Ark kids to form a powerful psychic web “to tame the violence in others.” When the reader first meets Elijah, he has become so wounded from feeling the violence in the world that he has utterly withdrawn into himself. Two things pull him out: a raven with which he has a mystic link (and whose message is decidedly unclear), and Amber, daughter of the leader of the Free Mountain Militia, in whom Elijah detects a fellow Ark kid. For a story that culminates with the foiling of a plot to broadcast a particularly deadly strain of smallpox throughout the world, this is awfully slow and muddled. Elijah and Amber spend a lot of time plumbing their feelings about violence together and separately, Amber’s sociopathic brother Kenny providing a near-lethal counterpoint to the philosophizing. The ravens (Elijah attracts a flock) swoop in and out, quorking mysteriously, Elijah alternately links psychically with animals and acts as the militia’s computer guru, Amber alternately entertains doubts as to the ethics of her father’s methodologies and regrets that she, as a girl, cannot join him more fully. While the topic may be timely, there’s too much talk and not enough action; its message, too, is unclear, as Elijah commits violence in order to prevent violence, his psychic web nowhere in evidence. Only for committed fans of part one. (Fiction. 10-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17419-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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