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Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Her Bone Season novels ( The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Representatives of each belief system-Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South-are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods-but not the fire-breathing type. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons-beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance-set on destroying humankind. No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. #TAD WILLIAMS OTHERLAND APPROPRIATE FOR KIDS PRO#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.Ī tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Īfter 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame. 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. 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. #TAD WILLIAMS OTHERLAND APPROPRIATE FOR KIDS FULL#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. #TAD WILLIAMS OTHERLAND APPROPRIATE FOR KIDS HOW TO#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. 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. Are we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. ![]()
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