Crowman
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
Touch the light. Hold the light. The light burns. The light runs away. Hold the light. Lock the light away.
The great spirit Vatu keeps the Sun in a box, where no thief can steal it. Once a year, the box is opened and life springs across the dark lands. The whole world belongs to Vatu. He is darkness, he is master of all. There is no hiding from him.
But Utas must try, for his daughter's sake. She is sick from darkness, and yet she glows with a mysterious light. If Vatu can find them, he will destroy them, or worse, drag them back into his mad, dark world. Torn between duty and mercy, between justice and freedom, Utas tries to escape, but it seems inevitable that the darkness will reclaim him.
For the greatest mercy and the greatest punishment Utas can suffer is to return to his true self.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rae (Midnight in the Garden of Naughty and Nice) misfires on a promising premise with this sloppy dark fantasy series opener. The evil spirit Vatu keeps the sun locked in a box, causing darkness to fall across the land. Vatu's former acolyte, Utas, flees from Vatu's control with his daughter, Alaba, whose body has the power to create light. They encounter Zintoa, a wounded soldier, and stop to help him using Alaba's magic. Zintoa repays them by taking them captive, determined to return them to Vatu. Their path back to "the city of the sun" is perilous and bloody, as strangers they meet along the road prove to be dangerous. One of the travelers they encounter, Erroi, appears to be more than human, giving Utas hope that he and Alaba may be able to use Erroi's powers to save themselves from Vatu. But while the world is fully conceived, the characters are underdeveloped (other than Utas's desire to protect his daughter, readers will struggle to understand motivations), and the short, staccato sentences tend to flatten emotional moments. Dark fantasy fans will find this one a slog.
