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. 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. These, along with the strong female leads, are solid foundations upon which to build.Ī moderately promising entry that should find an audience.Īre 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. And when Csorwe and Shuthmili meet and fumble toward a relationship, we recognize heartfelt emotion, real substance, and an emergent theme: loyalties and the choices we make that engender them. Until this point, the story meanders, but finally the author finds a unique voice no longer dependent on boilerplate action, chases, escapes, torture, and fights. Later, during a quest to secure the Reliquary, she will clash with the Qarsazhi, imperial interworld extortionists, and their powerful young wizard Shuthmili, who's fated to be absorbed by their enforcement arm but, like Csorwe, never conceived other possibilities. The wizard, formerly the ruler of the city Tlaanthothe, needs her to help reclaim his position from a scheming rival. Csorwe chooses life and becomes Sethennai's ninja. Then Sethennai, a wizard-his race has Spock ears-requesting a prophesy about the mysterious and powerful Reliquary of Pentravesse, offers her a choice: serve him and live, or marry the god and die. Csorwe is of a hominin race that sports tusks-these are functionless and, unfortunately, impossible to visualize without thinking 'piggish.' In a narrative rendered in crisp, vivid prose, Csorwe serves the oracular shrine of a god-the Unspoken Name-but is destined soon to sacrifice herself. Magic powers derive from a rare, innate ability combined with power vouchsafed by a patron god.

In this imaginative but never fully convincing universe, places may be reached via magical gates leading through a maze of dead and dying worlds. Larkwood's debut, the first of a fantasy series, begins in familiar fashion as a warrior-maiden adventure and gradually develops into a love story.

The unspoken name series