The Trials of Koli
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Absorbing, stunning, and emotionally rich." --Locus
The journey through M. R. Carey's "immersive, impeccably rendered world" (Kirkus) -- a world in which nature has turned against us -- continues in The Trials of Koli, book two of the Rampart Trilogy.
The earth wants to swallow us whole...
Koli never planned to set foot outside his small village. He knew that beyond its walls lay a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and Shunned men. But when he was exiled, he had no choice but to journey out into this strange world where every moment is a fight for survival.
And it's not just Koli's life that is threatened. Whole villages just like his are dying out.
But Koli heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If he can find it, there may still be a way for him to change his own fate - by saving the lives of those who are left.
The Rampart TrilogyThe Book of KoliThe Trials of KoliThe Fall of Koli
For more from M. R. Carey, check out:The Girl With All the GiftsFellsideThe Boy on the BridgeSomeone Like Me
By the same author, writing as Mike Carey:The Devil You KnowVicious CircleDead Men's BootsThicker Than WaterThe Naming of the Beasts
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carey broadens the scope of his Rampart trilogy in this solid second adventure (following The Book of Koli) set in a dangerous, postapocalyptic England in which technology is taboo and nature itself, mutated amid civilization's destruction, is a constant threat. Now an exile from the oppressive village of Mythen Rood, Koli Woodsmith, together with a motley crew of human and robotic companions, sets out to find the fabled land of London, following a signal from a mysterious entity called Sword of Albion. Meanwhile, Koli's former friend Spinner Vennastin gets married in Mythen Rood. But there are soldiers on the move who will kill to take all surviving tech they find, and Spinner learns the only way to save her village may be with the same forbidden technology that could get her shot by the soldiers or hanged by her own people. Readers who were frustrated by Koli's dialect in the first installment will continue to struggle with his voice ("There come a time, by and by, when I feared we was not going to get to London at all"), but the broader cast brings welcome relief and diversity. Branching out from Mythen Rood was also a good choice, allowing Carey space to build a broken world that is both marvelously expansive and claustrophobically menacing. New readers will have no trouble jumping in here, and fans of postapocalyptic science fiction will find plenty to hold their attention.