What’s a person to do when sheltering from Covid? In King’s case, write something to entertain himself while reflecting on what was going on in the world outside-ravaged cities, contentious politics, uncertainty. Narnia on the Penobscot: a grand, and naturally strange, entertainment from the ever prolific King. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.Įngrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious-which also makes her an appealing heroine. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water-they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife-and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. But readers who accompany him as he learns to understand himself will see magic returning to our world.Ī fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit. Piranesi is a naif, and there’s much that readers understand before he does. Clarke imagines where all that magic goes when it leaves our world and what it would be like to be trapped in that place. At the foundation of this story is an idea at least as old as Chaucer: Our world was once filled with magic, but the magic has drained away. With her second novel, Clarke invokes tropes that have fueled a century of surrealist and fantasy fiction as well as movies, television series, and even video games. Piranesi is happy to let the statues simply be. These halls are inhabited by statues that seem to be allegories-a woman carrying a beehive a dog-fox teaching two squirrels and two satyrs two children laughing, one of them carrying a flute-but the meaning of these images is opaque. The character known as Piranesi lives within a Classical structure of endless, inescapable halls occasionally inundated by the sea. It is that, but the name is also a helpful clue for readers trying to situate themselves in the world Clarke has created. Readers who recognize Piranesi as the name of an Italian artist known for his etchings of Roman ruins and imaginary prisons might recognize this as a cruel joke that the Other enjoys at the expense of the novel’s protagonist. This name was chosen for him by the Other, the only living person Piranesi has encountered during his extensive explorations of the House. The narrator of this novel answers to the name “Piranesi” even though he suspects that it's not his name. The much-anticipated second novel from the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr.
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