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| The Rise of the iron moon |
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| The Rise of the iron moon
by Stephen Hunt | |
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Summary
| Born into captivity as a product of the Royal Breeding House, friendless orphan Purity Drake suddenly finds herself on the run with a foreign vagrant after accidentally killing one of her guards. Her strange rescuer claims he is on the run himself from terrible forces who mean to enslave the Kingdom of Jackals much as they conquered his own nation. Purity doubts his story until reports of the terrible Army of Shadows, marching across the continent and sweeping all before them. Purity has felt little love for her country but realizes that the bad acts of a government gone wrong aren't enough to condemn an entire people. There's more to Purity than meets the eye. As Jackals girds itself for war against an army of near-unkillable beasts serving an ancient evil, it becomes clear that the country's only hope is a strange little royalist girl and the last, desperate plan of an escaped slave. | |
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Characters
| Discovers from her astronomer friend that there is life on a neighboring planet and that an invasion force is already on its way; commands a spaceship that goes to the neighboring planet to meet rebels underground | |
| Attributes | Human | |
| Fairy | |
| Orphan | |
| Fights evil as Hood-'o-the-Marsh, a vigilante with a pair of magical guns | |
| Born into captivity as a product of the Royal Breeding House; has magical powers; accidentally killed a guard; ecaped her captivity | |
Genre
| Fiction
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| Fantasy
--Steampunk | |
| Science fiction
--Steampunk | |
| Adventure
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Topics
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Born into captivity as a product of the Royal Breeding House, friendless orphan Purity Drake suddenly finds herself on the run with a foreign vagrant after accidentally killing one of her guards. Her strange rescuer claims he is on the run himself from terrible forces who mean to enslave the Kingdom of Jackals much as they conquered his own nation. Purity doubts his story until reports of the terrible Army of Shadows, marching across the continent and sweeping all before them. Purity has felt little love for her country but realizes that the bad acts of a government gone wrong aren't enough to condemn an entire people. There's more to Purity than meets the eye. As Jackals girds itself for war against an army of near-unkillable beasts serving an ancient evil, it becomes clear that the country's only hope is a strange little royalist girl and the last, desperate plan of an escaped slave.
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There is a new threat to the Kingdom of Jackals, and it comes in the form of the invading Army of Shadows. The Army leaves desolate wastelands in its wake as its bizarre creatures pillage the land to supply the needs of their Masters. It is up to Molly, Oliver, the Commodore, Coppertracks, and young Purity Drake somehow to stop the Army, defeat the Masters, and save their world. VERDICT If you have any interest in steampunk at all, this series (The Court of the Air; The Kingdom Beyond the Waves) should be at the top of your to-read list. Hunt builds a world that is a perfect mix of the industrial and fantastical. The society is delightfully skewed, often brutal, and horrifyingly believable. High-stakes mayhem and cunning social commentary work very well together and make for amazing page-turners.-April Steenburgh, Endwell, NY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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This campy postapocalyptic steampunk environmental morality tale brings together several characters from 2009's The Court of the Air and 2010's The Kingdom Beyond the Waves and takes them on a hair-raising rollercoaster of an adventure. When the Army of Shadows threatens the Kingdom of Jackals and the Quatershift, the two countries must set aside their differences and work together against the monstrous and dangerous foe. The Shadows appear to be a completely unknown form of life, and their nature compels destruction of everything in their path. Molly Templar, Commodore Black, Duncan Connor, Coppertracks the Steamman, Oliver Brooks and a few new faces must race the clock to stem the tide of this horrendous evil. A dash of earth magic and a dose of environmental angst make this a bumpy but enjoyable ride. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Hunt returns to the steampunk world he created in The Court of the Air (2008). This time around, the Army of Shadows is invading after subduing the neighboring planet Kaliban, but the bungling governments of Earth underestimate the danger, at first blaming the rising havoc on each other. It falls on Purity Drake, an orphan captive from the Royal Breeding House, to lead the battle against the invading slats, while celestial fiction writer Molly Templar follows her dreams into space with the steamman Coppertracks, Commodore Black, and others to discover the mystery of the aliens and save the Kingdom of Jackals. Hunt's plot is muddled by too many characters, overwhelmed by wave upon wave of mass destruction, and somewhat manic in tone, but he does know how to push the pace, with every chapter ending in a cliffhanger that re-creates the feeling of serialized Victorian fiction. There's enough colorful period slang, imaginative pseudoscientific detail, unusual secondary characters, and cloak-and-dagger derring-do to please steampunk fans, particularly those who enjoyed Hunt's previous titles.--Hollands, Neil Copyright 2010 Booklist
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