DreamHaven

Transgender manga artist Keito Gaku won the 77th Tetsuya Chiba Prize for a one-shot manga about a transgender teen. His four-volume series based on that story, Boys Run the Riot, was released in Japan in 2020. In an interview in the back of Volume One, Gaku says that he wanted the book to be about, not just coming out as transgender, but about the way fashion is related to identity and gender. The fourth and final volume of the English translation of Boys Run the Riot is now available, and includes the earlier story, called Light.

The protagonist, Ryo, says he was “born in a healthy female body,” but hates his schoolgirl uniform because he doesn’t want to be treated like a girl and doesn’t feel at ease in a body identifiable as female. Things begin to change, not necessarily for the better, when he meets a new classmate, Jin, who shares his taste in fashion. Jin convinces Ryo to start a fashion design “brand” with him, saying, “Let’s destroy all their stupid assumptions with our clothes.” They call it Boys Run the Riot.

The story is based somewhat on the experiences of the author, though he never started a fashion brand. It may reflect some of the experiences of transgender kids worldwide, though some experiences, like the use of pronouns in Japanese and gendered school uniforms, might be unique. The result is a complicated and intensely personal story. It is a vivid exploration of the way appearance influences our attitudes and prejudices, and of how difficult it can be to live outside of societal expectations.

“Living freely also comes with sacrifices. If you still want to do it, then please, don’t give up,” Keito Gaku.

Ropa Moyo is a fourteen-year-old high school dropout with green dreadlocks, black lipstick, and a massive attitude fueled by a ferocious intelligence. She has taken over her grandmother’s marginally profitable business as a ghost-talker, conversations which are made possible by finding the right tune on a Zimbabwean instrument called a mbira. She lives in a caravan parked outside a near-future ruined Edinburgh. Her biggest problems are sore feet from delivering messages from beyond the grave to their paying living relatives, keeping her little sister in school, and caring for her grandmother. Then she runs into a ghost who begs her to find her living son, who has disappeared.

The Library of the Dead would be Ropa’s dream come true, if she weren’t a trespasser on ground reserved for a privileged few. It’s a repository of all magical knowledge—along with the grave of David Hume—in a carved-out cavern below Calton Hill. Fortunately, some members are willing to bend the rules just a little to provide her with the dense textbooks she needs to learn to work magic. The ghost’s missing child is part of a series of disappearances, and no one but Ropa and her two friends from the Library, Priya and Jomo, seem willing to try to find the lost children.

This is a wonderful book with a fresh new voice. The author, T.L. Huchu, was born in Zimbabwe, but lived most of his life in Edinburgh. His familiarity with both cultures results in an unforgettable strange world, narrated by a completely realistic voice. I don’t think this is the last adventure for Ropa and her friends. Tiny print on the title page labels this book as “Edinburgh Nights Book One.”

Fans of the epic Chinese fantasy series ‘The Untamed’ will be happy to hear that the first volume of the official, uncensored English translation of the novel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu is now available. The book has been given the somewhat unromantic title of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. I am not sure how many volumes are planned, but this first volume covers chapters 1 through 32, and includes a long appendix with handy information about the characters, the language, and Daoist Chinese cultivation magic.

Mo Dao Zu Shi began as a 113-chapter serialized web novel in China. The story is an old-fashioned romance, of the how-long-can-you-keep-the-two-of-them-apart variety, between two young men who practice different forms of cultivation magic. It has been extremely popular, spawning an on-line manhua (Chinese graphic novel) and three seasons of an animated series, all of which have been translated only by fans. Word has spread worldwide through thousands of fanfic stories on An Archive of Our Own. This is the first official and edited English translation.

Compared to the 50-episode live-action drama, the book is unexpectedly light hearted. The two guys are adorable, and there’s none of the weight of tragedy that hangs over ‘The Untamed’ from the very beginning. The seeds of later sorrows are there, however, so it’s likely that the story will turn darker in later volumes. The story that is unfolding underneath the romance is a compelling martial arts fantasy almost as complex as ‘Game of Thrones’ though, sadly, not as well written. I found it lots of fun to read, but I am a huge fan of ‘The Untamed,’ and am likely biased.

Mo Dao Zu Shi, Volume One, trade paperback, $19.99

As a bookseller, any story that features a bookstore makes me happy, but this time-travelling fantasy really stands out. The bookshop in question is named Rhyme and Reason, and is run by our teenage protagonist, Poppy Fulbright’s, father. It is sentient and brimming with its own magic, though it can communicate only by changing the décor and occasionally writing quotes from books on a little blackboard. Its front door opens to customers who need a haven in both the near future and recent past. Poppy’s family’s door opens to 1944 New York, where World War Two is still raging. 

Poppy loves the bookshop (which clearly loves her back) and wants someday to be a Shopkeeper like her father, though her older brother is supposed to inherit the shop. But Poppy’s brother is messing up the bookshop’s magic with his grief over his closest friend’s death in the War overseas. When her father falls ill, it is up to Poppy to keep the shop open and happy. But things are far more broken that she can imagine. 

Though the book is aimed at “upper middle grade” readers, the language is elegant and eloquent. The story is deep and emotionally complex but, while there are adults whose actions are important, it never leaves Poppy’s point of view. The author is willing to tackle the consequences of everyone’s actions in a way rarely seen in books for kids. The bittersweet ending makes the book, I think, a potential contender for the Newbery Award. 

Bookshop of Dust and Dreams, hardcover, $16.99

Every now and then, a reader needs to step away from great literature, or horror as metaphor, or fantasy that reflects the end of civilization, and pick up an old-fashioned, sword-and-sorcery adventure. I have been a fan of Canadian writer Sebastian De Castell since discovering his four-book Greatcoats Series. Since then, there has been the Spellslinger Series, which has six books and, now, Way of the Argosi.

De Castell knows how to deliver a page-turning adventure with just the right mixture of humor, wisdom, and suspense. His protagonists go through, perhaps, way more physical and emotional trauma than is reasonable but, then again, they’re heroes. They tell their stories in first person, so you know that they won’t actually die. They also never leave horrible cliffhangers at the end of a book.

Way of the Argosi features a female hero who was a minor character in a Spellslinger book, and she is no more unbelievable than De Castell’s other heroes. She is incredibly resourceful for a teenager who is abandoned (three times), tortured, hated, and constantly on the edge of starvation. Her luck changes, sort of, when she meets a wandering, disreputable-looking dude, who calls himself an Argosi. It looks to be the beginning of many exciting, dangerous, and borderline insane adventures, which doubtlessly will continue in a new series. In fact, Book Two is called Fall of the Argosi, and should be arriving soon.

The cover copy states that “hope is a fragile thing,” yet this brilliant little book is full of it. Despite having an overwhelming number of things to despair about, the narrator, Tetley Abednego, feels herself beloved and living in a most wonderful place.

Tetley’s world is a dire post-climate-change future where dry land no longer exists and only a few humans, mostly those with boats, survived. But some of the poorest people seemingly found a floating pile of all of the unused things from our age, which had inexplicably been sorted by type. Tetley lives on this floating Garbagetown, well after the environmental disasters and the Great Sorting. She is born in Candle Hole, walks to Electric City to get her name, and travels as far as Pill Hill to find her destiny.

Everywhere she looks on her island of garbage, Tetley sees beauty and love. There are gorgeous sunsets over mounds of partly-used candles, lovely colors in backlit piles of pill bottles, amazing creatures (many dangerous), and interesting humans (who mostly hate her). The book is a reminder that even people living in circumstances that seem impossible can find happiness and moments of poetic beauty. It gives me hope that the world my generation (which Tetley calls the Fuckwits) is leaving behind will not be entirely filled with horror.

I have been a fan of British-American author Patrick Ness’ books since The Knife of Never Letting Go, which won the Tiptree (now Otherwise) Award in 2008. He also wrote another of my favorite fantasy books, A Monster Calls. His books are marketed for young adults but are deep and complex, and never hold back on the ugliness that some people create for themselves and their children. His teenage protagonists don’t so much learn to get over their problems as learn to go on living anyway.

Burn is no exception, living up to the cover copy which states, “How does the world end? It ends in fire.” It takes place in a fictional 1957 Frome, Washington threatened more by nuclear war than the powerful dragons which have mostly withdrawn to the Dragon Wastes of northern Canada. The end of the world will involve three teenagers; Sarah whose dead mother was Black, Jason whose mother died in a Japanese internment camp, and “Malcolm” who was raised by a pro-dragon cult to be an assassin (and is also gay). There is also Kazimir who, at 200 years old, is probably still a teenage dragon.

If you want a book where teenagers resolve their insecurities by falling in love or becoming heroes, you will be disappointed. This is a rich fantasy full of horror and wonder. It is a story of worlds within worlds, where an ancient rivalry between dragon nature and humanity is played out over millennia and where adolescent problems are just part of life.

Fatma el-Sha’awari, of the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, prefers to wear European suits, always impeccably matched with shirt, tie, and bowler hat, of course. Since the 1912 Cairo in need of magical protection is a colorful and diverse city, host to people and magical beings from all over the world, this does not stand out. Well, not very much, anyway.

This is P. Djeli Clark’s first novel, but Agent Fatma and the magical cases she solves have appeared in several novellas (available at Tor.com). It is not the first appearance of Clark’s vibrant version of Cairo, either. This Cairo has been transformed into a world power by the emergence of magic brought about four decades ago by the genius magician Al-Jahiz. It is a fascinating place, run with the help of clockwork artificial intelligence and powered by magic and steam.

But this might be Agent Fatma’s toughest case yet. A person claiming to be Al-Jahiz returned, is terrorizing the people and djinn of Cairo, beginning by murdering an entire secret society of Englishmen dedicated to preserving the wisdom of the original Al-Jahiz. Plus, only slightly less concerning, Agent Fatma, who is famous for always working alone, has been saddled with a partner, a hijab-wearing new trainee who really admires her detective work.

The murder investigation makes a tense and entertaining read, highly recommended particularly for fans of snarky magical detectives like Ben Aaronivich’s Peter Grant.