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Summary
Summary
A young lord faces off against an ingenious general in an epic fantasy that's "twisty in its political maneuverings, gritty in its battle descriptions, and rich with a sense of heroism and glory." ( Publishers Weekly )
Beyond the Black River, among the forests and mountains of the north, lives an ancient race of people. Their lives are measured in centuries, not decades; they revel in wilderness and resilience, and they scorn wealth and comfort.
By contrast, those in the south live in the moment, their lives more fleeting. They crave wealth and power; their ambition is limitless, and their cunning unmatched.
When the armies of the south flood across the Black river, the fragile peace between the two races is shattered. On a lightning-struck battlefield, the two sides will fight -- for their people, for their land, for their very survival.
Author Notes
Leo Carew is a Cambridge graduate of Biological Anthropology, currently studying medicine. Apart from writing, his real passion is exploration, which led him to spend a year living in a tent in the High Arctic, where he trained and worked as an Arctic guide.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Carew's gripping and ambitious epic fantasy debut introduces a world closely mapped to Viking-era Europe, with intriguingly differences. Roper Kynortas becomes the leader of the Black Kingdom, the home of the nature-loving, pragmatic race of giants known as the Anakim, after seeing his father killed in their first military defeat in thousands of years. Young, inexperienced, and grieving, Roper has to find a way to secure his nation against the invading human Sutherners while solidifying and consolidating his power against the threat posed by heroic Uvoren, the ambitious leader of the Anakim sacred guard. His human antagonist, Bellamus, an upstart commoner who specializes in knowledge of the Anakim, is delightfully clever. The book is twisty in its political maneuverings, gritty in its battle descriptions, and rich with a sense of heroism and glory that fans of Saxon-derived poetic tradition will appreciate. The depth of Anakim culture is thoroughly developed, including shadow organizations run by women that may threaten the heavily militarized male-focused power structure. The finale of this installment perfectly sets the stage for a larger story, and readers will excitedly anticipate the rest of the series. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Autonomous (Orbit, £8.99) is the debut novel from Annalee Newitz, a science journalist and co-founder of the SF website io9. It¿s 2144 and in a hi-tech, down-at-heel US ¿ a hybrid of Blade Runner and William Gibson¿s Sprawl trilogy ¿ ¿Jack¿ Chen manufactures illegal drugs for the poor. She also pirates a drug known as Zacuity, designed to aid concentration. When she learns that it has lethal side-effects undisclosed by its makers, the Zaxy Corporation, Chen turns whistleblower and must flee the ruthless agents of the International Property Coalition. What could easily descend into a routine run-around chase caper is given moral and intellectual depth by Newitz¿s examination of corporate behaviour and the limits of personal freedom. A grim dystopia which asks pertinent questions about the role of artificial intelligence and the ethics of the pharmaceutical industry, Autonomous is thrilling and stimulating. After the terrible global conflict known as the climate wars, humankind has constructed a last redoubt: the floating city of Qaanaaq in the Arctic Circle. In Sam J Miller¿s first novel for adults, Blackfish City (Orbit, £12.99), we follow the lives of a gay playboy suffering a debilitating mental disease, a brain-damaged fighter fallen on hard times, a well-off government administrator and a gender-neutral courier who works for the underworld. What links these well-drawn and disparate characters is the story of a woman who came to the city on the back of an orca, offering hope. Qaanaaq is vividly brought to life in all its squalid glory, and Miller excels at depicting a metropolis bursting at the seams and populated by both refugees and the elite. Blackfish City is a compelling dystopian thriller. In The Wolf (Headline, £16.99), the ambitious first novel in the Under the Northern Sky series, Leo Carew depicts the island of Albion sundered by war between the Anakim, warrior-giants of the north, and the smaller Suthernors. When the Anakim¿s revered leader is killed in battle, his son Roper must utilise all his scheming wiles to take his place ¿ and it¿s the convoluted political intrigue, as Roper retreats to his icy northern fastness and plots against usurpers in his own kingdom as well as against the invading warriors of the south, that Carew handles so well. Roper is at once clever and vulnerable, and touchingly aware of his own limitations and inexperience. It¿s an absorbing study of one man¿s rise to power, and something of a slow burner ¿ imagine Game of Thrones rewritten by John le Carré ¿ with some magnificent world-building (the northern Black Kingdom is graphically rendered in all its wintry bleakness). Featuring excellent anthropological observations of the opposing cultures of the Anakim and the Suthernors, and building inexorably towards its climactic battle, The Wolf is a marvellously accomplished debut. ¿Mallory wouldn¿t return to the bathroom because that¿s where the dead man was ¿¿ Stephen Lloyd Jones ¿s fourth novel, The Silenced (Headline, £8.99), hits the ground running and never lets up. Mallory Grace has killed the assassin who came to kill her, but that¿s only the start of her troubles: her pursuers will stop at nothing to see her dead, and the chase is on¿ Meanwhile, reclusive SF nerd and animal lover Obe Macintosh is mysteriously targeted by gunmen at an animal sanctuary at Land¿s End. What follows, as Mallory and Obe meet up andare pursued across Europe by a fanatical death-cult called the Vasi, is an electrifying supernatural chiller that slowly reveals the reasons behind this merciless pursuit. Mallory is an Arayici, part of an ancient bloodline which has served as ¿an accelerator pedal for humanity¿s development¿ for 80,000 years, and the Vasi are her mortal enemies, whose aim is to wipe out not only the Arayici but the entire human race. While The Silenced will win no prizes for prose-style or originality, it¿s a gripping page-turner. In The Tangled Lands (Head of Zeus, £18.99) by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S Buckell, the ancient city of Khaim is the last stronghold of a crumbling empire, and the city itself is under siege. The invader is not the marauding army familiar from so many fantasy epics, but a pernicious weed, a bramble that sprouts and takes irrevocable hold wherever magic is practised. The use of magic is forbidden on pain of death, a rule broken only by the very desperate and those wealthy enough to get away with it. Against this rich, intriguing background the authors have each written two novellas, charting the fates of a diverse cast in the dying city. The stand-out tales open and close the volume. In Bacigalupi¿s ¿The Alchemist¿, the eponymous old man runs the risk of death by using magic spells to save his dying daughter while inventing a device to kill the weed, with unforeseen and moving consequences. Buckell¿s harrowing ¿The Blacksmith¿s Daughter¿ depicts the plight of Sofija, who must fight injustice to save her parents. Exploring themes of power, corruption, greed and thwarted hope, the authors deliver an absorbing and sensitive fantasy. - Eric Brown.
Kirkus Review
A grand-scale historical fantasy set in the frigid wilds of the Black Kingdom, Carew's stellar debut novelabout a young lord forced into a perilously complex situation after his father is killed in battleis an action-packed and blood-splattered tour de force.The Black Kingdom, inhabited by a race of giant warriors, lies in the northern reaches of the realm of Albion, separated from its enemies, the Sutherners, by a great river. The Sutherner populace is terrified of their neighbors to the north, who wear virtually impenetrable bone armor and are mythically long-lived. But when the legendary leader of the Black Kingdomthe Black Lordis killed in battle and his 19-year-old son, Roper, is forced onto the throne, the entire kingdom is thrown into chaos. One of his father's most revered soldiers, the war hammer-wielding Uvoren, wants the throne for himselfand will do anything to get it. As Suthern forces roam the Black Kingdom killing its residents and burning everything to the ground, Roper must maneuver his way through a treacherous political labyrinth, leading a society on the brink of civil war while also formulating a plan that will push the interlopers from the land. Quickly marrying into a respected family and gathering powerful allies strengthen Roper's position, but the odds are still stacked against him. Featuring a memorable cast of (predominantly male) characters, exceptional worldbuilding, meticulously choreographed battle scenes, and relentless pacing, the narrative does has some minor flaws. The author's strength in describing the Black Kingdom sometimes gets neglected in the novel's later chapters as he focuses on the fight scenes, and the story arc revolving around the relationship between Roper and his wife is two-dimensional at best. The novel's strengths, however, ultimately outweigh these weaknesses. Carew is the real dealan exciting new voice in fantasy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Carew's debut novel presents an alternate medieval Britain in which the isle of Albion is shared by human Saxons and two races of giants: the incredibly long-lived Anakim and the larger and rarer Unhieru. The uneasy peace between the southern Saxon kingdom and the Black Kingdom of the Anakim is broken as the Sutherners invade, scoring an unexpected victory and killing the current Black Lord. The novel follows both the Anakim heir, Roper, as he attempts to defend the kingdom from invasion while dealing with rivals for the throne, and the leader of the southern invasion, Bellamus, a commoner attempting to not only destroy the Anakim but also secure his own advancement. Carew's brisk and engaging narrative, with its mixture of gritty violence and political intrigue, will remind readers of George R. R. Martin, David Gemmell, or a less-bleak Joe Abercrombie. Recommended for fans of the grittier end of the epic-fantasy spectrum, or for general readers interested in checking out a solid entry in the genre for the first time.--Keep, Alan Copyright 2018 Booklist