Stephen King’s Revival is a novel that experiments with cosmic horror to tell a story much less interested in providing cheap scares than in discussing how our search for order (and justice) in life leads us to embrace a religion. The real horror of its narrative is not crafted around the danger of eldritch beings, but how our concept of an afterlife shapes our worldview and dictates our actions: to pose the question “but what if we are wrong”, that way madness lies.
The book is narrated in the first person by Jamie Morton, an old man who begins to recall his childhood, beginning on the day the new Methodist minister, Charles Jacobs, arrived in his town and changed his life [...]
The Shadow of the Gods, the first book in The Bloodsworn series, is a competent Nordic-inspired fantasy that presents a fascinating world rife with monsters and violence, where characters learn to be brutal to survive. The novel, however, is let down by a problematic structure that makes some plotlines take too long to get moving, while others suffer from the lack of a proper conclusion.
The story starts with a hunt. While young Breca is preparing to throw a spear at a reindeer, his mother, Orka, teaches him that “Death is a part of life.” He misses the shot, however, because a wolf startles the deer: in The Shadow of the Gods, there will always be a creature lurking in the [...]
Despite being part of the Cosmere, Brandon Sanderson’s shared universe, Tress of the Emerald Sea is not a typical Sanderson book: instead of an epic fantasy boasting a huge cast of characters and told in a didactic voice, we have a whimsical fairy tale with a playful narrator that focuses on the story of a single figure.
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock,” the novel starts, immediately framing its narrative in the realm of fairy tales. This is the story of Tress, a girl who lives in a world with talking rats, cunning dragons, cruel sorcerers, and ships that sail over clouds of spores that burst in contact with water. One day, Tress’ loved one [...]
The Traitor Baru Cormorant tells the first chapter of a story about identity and betrayal, with a protagonist that is willing to do anything to change the system from within: it’s a fantasy novel concerned with political change, and the sacrifices necessary to propel it.
The story starts when Baru is a little girl on the island of Taranoke, living with her two fathers and her mother Pinion. One day, Taranoke is visited by the Masquerade Empire, which proclaims to have come in peace, offering progress instead of war. But Baru quickly learns that dominion can occur without violence, as the subjective progress came with political and social control attached. Vowing to avenge [...]
This review contains spoilers.
Falling is a shallow thriller that heavily relies on overused tropes and stereotypes to tell a by-the-books story of a plane being hijacked by terrorists: full of one-note characters and predictable twists, the novel is also marred by a strong reluctance to delve into its own themes.
The book opens with a shocking scene full of death, dismemberment, and despair. “WHEN THE SHOE DROPPED INTO her lap the foot was still in it,” it starts. At first, it seems to be an in medias res opening, as it shows a plane whose side has been blown up, its passengers dead or heavily hurt. A woman believes her husband was shot by someone, but the narrator [...]
The Gutter Prayer presents an imaginative fantasy world populated by so many different horrors – eldritch and scientific – that its inhabitants live in a constant state of fear and shock. Its plot may be convoluted, but this only reinforces the overwhelming feeling that besieges the characters, who are hopelessly manipulated by unforgiving, inscrutable forces.
The book opens with a description of the city of Guerdon, marking the importance of the setting to the story. Guerdon is presented as a derelict place haunted by its past, the urge to escape from it, and its inability to do so. As the narrator describes it, “Guerdon has always been a place in tension with itself, a city [...]