Blackbringer (Dreamdark) [Mass Market Paperback]

Laini Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dreamdark | Publication Date: May 14, 2009

Magpie Windwitch is not like other faeries, most of whom live in tranquil seclusion. When she learns that escaped devils are creeping back into the world, she travels all over with her faithful clan of crows, hunting them down. The hunt will take her to the great forest of Dreamdark, where she must unravel the mystery of the worst enemy her folk have ever known. Can one small, determined faerie defeat the forces that threaten to unmake the world?

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Magpie, granddaughter of the West Wind, is born of dreams. When Humans—"mannies"—start letting loose devils in the world, faerie Magpie and her band of rough-and-tumble, cheroot-smoking crows must start hunting them down. The tale takes its time in unfolding, with lovely echoes of its literary antecedents from Tolkien on down. Magpie also learns it is she who must keep the dark from swallowing the world. She finds where the dragons, and her ancient heroine, Bellatrix, have gone, and she wakes an ancient djinni.The tapestry of the world needs reweaving, and a blond, tattooed princeling needs a way to remake his malformed wings. This all braids together into a radiant conclusion. Vibrant language overcomes a surfeit of telling rather than showing. 'Pie is one tough faerie, and the way is open for more tales about her to come. DeCandido, GraceAnne A.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Belongs at the top of everyone's fantasy must-read list. - Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Tremendous - a vivid adventure in a place both familiar and new, characters that made me laugh and cheer, and a truly frightening villain. I thoroughly enjoyed the read. - Shannon Hale, Newbery Honor Winner

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Firebird; Reprint edition (May 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014241168X
• ISBN-13: 978-0142411681
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #87 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Animals > Birds > Fiction

More About the Author

Laini Taylor is the author of the National Book Award Finalist Lips Touch: Three Times, as well as the novels Blackbringer and Silksinger. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faeries Who Kick It Old School, June 29, 2007

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer (Hardcover)

If you read only one fantasy book this year, read this one.

Gotcher attention, eh? I think that if you knew me, you'd know that I don't throw out statements like this willy-nilly. I've read enough books for children and teens to know that no matter how good a story seems while you are reading it, there's bound to be another that steals your heart a day or two later. Good books are published every single day, and declaring one to be the be all and end all of any category is just plain wrong.

That said, if you read only one fantasy book this year, read this one.

I mean it. First time author Laini Taylor has written a doozy of a debut. It's one of those books you read and then find you can't put down. I repeatedly found myself on the New York City subway system in a state of frustration every time I arrived at my stop. Somehow, Taylor is able to write a fantasy novel so compelling that you can never put it down because you've found yourself at a particularly exciting moment. Separating itself from every other fantasy series out there (an accomplishment in and of itself) Taylor's written a book with just enough humor, tension, excitement, hope, joy, and pure unadulterated despair to please even the most jaded of fantasy loving kiddies. And it's about freakin' fairies.

Funny story. Remember that old fairy tale about the guy who found a genie in a bottle and when he opened it he was granted three wishes? Well, it won't surprise you too much then to hear that these days whenever a human finds a bottle their first instinct is to uncork the sucker. Problem is, genies aren't the denizens of these bottles. Demons are. And when the demons are let loose upon the world there's only one gal with the guts to put them in their place. Magpie Windwitch just happens to be the granddaughter of the West Wing (it's a long story), a fairy, and she's traveling with her seven crow companions. Her job is to track down and recapture these wayward devils by any means possible. She's good at her job, but little of her training prepares her for the darkest creature let loose yet. Called the Blackbringer, this nasty piece of work is intent on destroying the world, and its chances happen to be pretty darn good. To defeat it Magpie will have to cross over to the world of the dead, befriend the flightless, scurry, kill, confront the creator of the universe (who is SUCH a pill these days), and discover her true past. If you didn't know her, that might sound like a tall order. If you knew her, it would still sound like a tall order, but at least you'd know she'll tackle it with everything she's got.

Hopes were not high when I first picked up this book. I'll level with you here... author Laini Taylor was previously best known for a line of fairy ornaments called "Laini's Ladies". From that you might imagine the book to be a sweet little flower fairy tale with a lot of dew-sipping and moonlight dances. Thank God for Laini's husband Jim DiBartolo, then. Basically, it's going to be hard to sell any book with the word "faeries" in its title to the male fantasy-reading public. That's where Jim comes in. His illustrations for the book are fairly spare, with less than ten dotting the book. Still, Mr. DiBartolo has nailed the tone of his wife's text. The image of Magpie on the cover is perfect. She looks like she means business. All the characters in this book look that way, actually. There's nothing soft, flower fairyish, or namby-pamby about these sprites. And one can only hope that exposure to the Artemis Fowl books will have given readers an inkling of the kick-butt nature of faeries in general.

Not that there isn't a healthy dosing of humor to boot. The crow brothers that accompany Magpie at all times act like a feathered version of Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men, language and all. They smoke cigars and put on plays at the drop of a hat (which is particularly amusing when you consider the lack of opposable thumbs and all). Every character here (except maybe the villains) has a sense of humor, and it's an honest one. Taylor doesn't have to force the jokes. They come naturally and lighten an already quick and fancy book.

Okay, but what's the most important thing in any fantasy novel? The quality of writing, duckies. First and foremost there's the language in this book. Taylor's managed to create a kind of new speech that is infinitely understandable, but at the same time distinguishes itself from the pseudo-Gaelic slang so many other authors indulge in. There's a great deal of pleasure to be taken in phrases like, "hush yer spathering," or, "it shivers me," or, "un-skiving-likely." . She's also a keen ear for lush otherworldly descriptions too. Some are gorgeous and remarkable. Others are so horrific you're half amazed no one's thought of them before. "Its mottled brown skin had the texture of dried gut stretched over a skull, and so crude were its features it seemed to have been sculpted in the dark, and with one obvious omission: it had no mouth." I won't describe any more except to say how it goes about GETTING a mouth is grotesquely unique.

Of course, the inevitable comparison here is going to be with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The funny parts and mix of fantasy and horror placed alongside a heroine with supernatural powers who fights demons? Yeah. We've seen it before. The thing is though, this isn't a Buffy rip-off. It's powerful in its own right with its own distinctive mythology and unique world. Then again, it can definitely be boiled down to one girl saving the world. Why? Well, as the book explains at one point, "As with each devil she captured, she was the only one trying." The nice thing about having Magpie as your heroine is that even when you're worried for her, you're not so worried that you don't trust her. She may have the manners of a pit bull and the self-grooming talents of a mangy cat, but she's tough and fun and will take on anything her size or larger if you let her.

You know what I liked about this book? No rhyming prophecies about the future. Can I tell you how rare it is to find a fantasy that doesn't contain at least one, if not more, poorly rhymed prophecies about a "chosen one"? Okay, so fine. Magpie is kind of a chosen one. But she doesn't have to solve any riddles about it and her destiny isn't written in stone on an ancient parchment somewhere or anything. Besides, as the book puts it so perfectly, "She decided finally that it's not so bad to find out you have a destiny when it's something you were going to do anyway." And by the way, when someone dies in this book it matters. It matters intensely. This isn't one of those books where people die left and right and the stoic hero doesn't feel the loss. Nuh-uh. If someone dies Magpie feels mourns it up. This is something not all authors think to do, and I for one appreciated it.

Oh. And there's a warrior prince that knits. And a horrid little scavenger imp who enjoys putting his toes in his nose. And a host of other interesting, terrible, wonderful things all packed together in this book without ever feeling rushed or overused. For all its 400-some pages, "Blackbringer" moves at a remarkable clip, never getting bogged down or slow it doesn't sacrifice character or plot for the sake of action. Laini Taylor's balancing act with this novel should be studied intensely by those wannabes that want to break into the world of fantasy writing for kids. It's one-of-a-kind and worth a taste. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. If you read only one fantasy book this year, read this one.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Debut Novel About Fierce Fairies Saving the World (Cutesy Fairies Need Not Apply), January 19, 2008

By 

B. Calhoun (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer (Hardcover)

"Hurry home, love, through the dream-dark glade/ where moontime beasts lurk in darkling shade/never linger, love, where the shadows grow/the Blackbringer hunts where the light fears to go."

Once upon a time, the Djinn wove the Tapestry of the world, creating forests and animals, mountains and fairies. Thousands of years ago a Devil War was waged when the horrific devils were created by snags in the Tapestry. The brave and beautiful fairy Bellatrix was the great heroine of this war and in the end she and her fellow warriors were able to trap all the devils in unopenable bottles. But then Bellatrix disappeared and the years passed, and something that not even the Djinn had forseen arose: mannies (humans). And mannies, with their insatiable curiosity began opening the bottles, expecting genies but instead releasing devils. Magpie Windwitch is the only fairy who seems to be hunting these devils, forcing them back into bottles. Most of the other fairies have forgotten the old ways, content to live in the safety of their villages. But then a bottle is opened that should never have been unsealed, one containing the awful shadow creature of legend known as the Blackbringer. The Blackbringer is more powerful than even the mighty Djinn and indiscriminately devours everything in its path, pulling devils and fairies alike into the darkness. Magpie, along with her comical crow companions, sets off to find the Djinn King, the only one powerful enough to stop the Blackbringer--but no one has seen him for centuries.

I began this book not expecting much: the tall, edgy faerie of Holly Black's Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale are one thing, but Tinkerbell-sized creatures are another. Tiny little winged fairies seemed as tough and adventurous as dragonflies to me. Consider me a convert. Little Magpie Windwitch may be tiny, but she sure has spunk. Talon Rathersting, a fairy who joins Magpie on her quest after the Blackbringer kills his father and brothers, is another non-stereotypical fairy. He is a prince of a warrior clan who has been hindered all his life with stubby wings. However, he does have a talent for knitting, and can create "skins" which he can wear to transform himself into a bird and finally have the chance to fly. Blackbringer is sprinkled with other such well-developed characters and Magpie's crows in particular provide a good dose of humor.

One of the most striking things about this book is Taylor's beautiful writing. She creates passages that are best described as lyrical and gives Magpie a unique voice by having her use a lot of fairy slang, like the word "skiving." It is even more impressive that this is her first book--it doesn't have any of the rough edges one would expect from a first time author.

Don't let the fear that a book about fairies will be too cutesy hold you back. This is a spectacular debut novel and absolutely engrossing. Highly recommended.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wondrous Tale, June 6, 2009

By 

Mary Kate (Wisconsin, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Blackbringer (Dreamdark) (Mass Market Paperback)

Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer - how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways...

I love thee because thou art wonderfully imagined and skillfully wrought.
I love thee because the characters living within your pages are well developed and fully realized. I genuinely liked them. Better yet, I admired them and found them to be marvelous role models.
I love thee because those characters speak with just enough dialect to enhance their non-humanness.
I love thee because thou hast made the heroes journey fresh with a light and deft touch and because those heroes aren't forever angsting over their destiny. Instead they're getting the job done - and were doing so long before they knew they had destinies.
I love thee because your faery world is neither overly dark and nasty nor gooily sweet and light. It has its own shades of gray and I care, not only about its survival, but about its history.
I love thee because people of all ages can find joy and magic in reading you.

In short, Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer, my love for thee is truly taller than tiptoes and most definitely higher than a stack of raccoons.

Blackbringer has found a forever home on my favorite-books-of-all-time shelf. I happily and highly recommend it to readers of all ages.