DreamHaven

I picked this book up because it has an interesting cover, of a silhouetted owl with glowing red eyes, and because Aimee Pokwatka’s previous book, Self Portrait with Nothing was recommended somewhere. I read her new novel instead. Also because, how can you resist a book about “murder owls?”

The Parliament is a mystery thriller about twenty-five people trapped in a library on a random Thursday by . . . yes, a swarm of vicious owls. It starts innocently enough as a well-written portrait of small town life from the perspective of a mildly obsessive and withdrawn young woman. Madigan, also called Mad, has returned to the hometown she escaped, to teach a middle-school-level science class at the library. Everything is proceeding as expected—the gossiping librarians, the elderly book club, the mysterious guy-meeting upstairs, and the science class—until the owls kill someone. No one mentions Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” They name the horde surrounding the library “the parliament.”

A parallel story emerges when Mad decides to read aloud from her favorite book, a little-known fantasy called “The Silent Queen.” That story, of a world where women literally give up body parts (involuntarily) to gain magical powers, is perhaps more distressing than the owls. But the trapped people, particularly the kids, seem to be gaining some courage and coping skills from the reading.

It is perhaps important that this particular town had a school shooting, not recently, but when Mad herself was in middle school. Mad has never gotten over that day, when her best friend died right in front of her. It is not something that can be forgotten. But for the kids in her library science class, it’s only a legend. Now those students have a trauma all their own. The book is a lovely exploration of trauma and its aftermath, and how it can be overcome even though it never really goes away.

I almost never read horror. I don’t like threatening bleak landscapes, lurking ghosts and witches, or (especially) intricately-described gruesome murders. Looking Glass Sound actually has all of those things. But the ocean is dangerous in the way oceans actually are—riptides and caves that fill at high tide. The witchcraft is oddly naive, though it does sort of work. And the gruesome murders took place years ago. You can dwell on those things, if you wish, but you don’t have to.

The book is about the three teenagers who, at the end of an idyllic summer, inadvertently uncover a series of decades-old murders and, possibly, reveal the murderer. Years later, one of the kids goes off to college, intending to become a writer in order to cope with the trauma of that wonderful, terrible summer. He is obsessed with it. He needs to write it about it. It’s his story, isn’t it? But he is not the only person who wants to tell the story.

At that point, a book that has been a compelling and beautifully written mystery begins to turn into a musing about the ownership of a story and the motives of the writers who produce that story. Layers of narrative about the same events begin to overlap, and increasingly often, contradict each other. The story changes its title; and the location changes from Whistler Bay to Looking Glass Sound. And the characters change their names and gender and destinies, depending on who has control of the narrative.

Through all this, no one speculates about how or why the murderer did what he did. As though the actual murders don’t really matter, the book does not explore the motives of serial killers. It also doesn’t question the reality of the ghosts or the magic that appear. Instead it explores whether or not the characters in a book are real. Because if the characters are real, the writing of a murder mystery may in itself be an act of murder. Is it possible that the writer is as evil as their invented serial killer?

If this is what modern horror is like, I’ll have to read more of it.

This is a first novel by Kell Woods, an Australian librarian turned writer. I chose it because the title reminded me of Jack’s (as in the Beanstalk) song from ‘Into the Woods,’ which is called ‘After the Sky.’ The song is about Jack’s emotional journey following his fairy tale adventure with the giants. After the Forest is, likewise, about the consequences on Gretel’s life, after she escapes the witch in the gingerbread house with her brother Hansel.

In After the Forest, Greta lives on the edge of Arnsburg Forest with her brother Hans, in her now-deceased father and step-mother’s cottage. She gets by selling amazingly delicious gingerbread in the nearby town of Lindenfeld. Hans spends his days mostly drinking. It seems likely that being captured as a child by an old woman who plans to eat you leads to long-term emotional issues, but this is not Hans’ story. The now-grown eight-year-old girl who everyone knows shoved the witch into an oven is not unburdened either.

Greta has more than her memories of abandonment and cruelty to deal with. Along with the trauma, she carries the burden of suspicion from the good people of Lindenfeld. This is a place that, only five years ago, sentenced a witch to burning, and many people think that Greta is one also. She killed that old woman, didn’t she? Shoved her into her own oven? They would not be completely wrong. Greta’s gingerbread recipe is from a book that she took from the old witch’s house.

They would not be wrong about witches, either. They do exist, winding through centuries of warfare and injustice. Their tales are intricately woven with the lives of Greta and Hans, and of the townsfolk of Lindenfeld. No one is entirely innocent, or entirely guilty, and many carry trauma from their own stories. The result is a beautifully-written, completely unique interweaving of old fairy tales.

Somewhere around twenty-five thousand years ago, or perhaps about thirty years ago, on a nameless island paradise, a nameless woman had a child with a man who called himself Victory. Victory had the power to reshape the world, so the island became a peninsula that had always been there. Eventually the man became a religious leader called the Perfect and Kind. The woman became a possibly insane person called Mother-of-Glory who remembers a past that no longer exists. She named their son Fetter, because he was to be the chains that limited his father.

Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to make sense. Understanding is not important here.

The Saint of Bright Doors is Fetter’s story. Fetter has no shadow, since his mother cut it from him at birth. He can see the “invisible powers” which his mother calls “demons.” And he floats, so he must pay attention in order to keep himself literally grounded. His mother trained him in assassination, with the goal of eventually killing his father.

He has come to an ancient city called Luriat, which (according to his mother) came into existence shortly after Fetter’s birth. It is a complicated place, full of competing religions and governments. The people who think they know what’s going on, can do so only because they ignore things that don’t make sense. There are pograms and plagues and mysterious disappearances which go unquestioned and unchecked. There are visionaries and saints and the Unchosen, who trained to be visionaries and saints but didn’t quite make the grade. And throughout the city there are brightly painted doors which don’t open and seem to lead to nowhere.

This is a brilliantly written book, meant perhaps to teach the reader what it is like to live in a place of contradictions and displacement. Its dreamy unreality evokes a world where no one is entirely sure what they’re allowed to do, yet following the rules is of utmost importance. The book is more an experience than a story, yet the plot is deftly built, a solid narrative assembled, one brick at at time, from nonsense. It is well worth experiencing.

Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy A. Bastian

This graphic novel stars a one-eyed young woman who has adventures while searching for her lost father, a not uncommon kid plot. The cover copy says that the story will “captivate adults and children alike.” It does indeed have a young protagonist and contains nothing objectionable for kids. But it is a complicated story, with lots of big words and deep meaning hidden in intricate drawings. Also, the author did his own lettering, in a lovely cursive script that only an advanced reader will be able to parse easily. It probably needs at least adult supervision.

The book is filled with interesting and unexpected characters. There is adventure. There are many varieties of pirates. There is a girl swashbuckling hero. The backgrounds, studied carefully, reveal all sorts of extra seafaring weirdness. The overall effect is a sort of nautical Alice in Wonderland, mixed with the zany pirate craziness of One Piece. It is incredibly inventive, seriously silly, a bit scary, and tons of fun.

Octopus by Richard Fairgray

This one is definitely not for kids. Though there is very little graphic sex, there is mention of multiple sexual relationships, past and present, woven through every page of the story. The book is a memoir of the author’s relationships with older men, looking back on the “messy and uncomfortable memories” of decades. It is a series of stories of encounters with aging men who once might have been the author’s lovers, but who always meant more than that to him.

Richard Fairgray promises to “make your bookshelf gayer, but not necessarily nicer.” Octopus is not the kind of gay memoir where awakening leads eventually to self-acceptance. It is gritty and raw, and full of angst and a fair amount of self loathing. It has the brutally honest sexuality of Robert Crumb and the introspective storytelling in graphic form of Will Eisner. But, well, lots gayer.

The stories look back with regret on relationships of caring that were lost partly because they were overlaid with relationships of need. And yet there is a haunting beauty to the stories. There is a sense of time wasted on unimportant things. It is a memoir written by a gay man who has learned that sex is a need that sometimes can be fulfilled by a friend, but that, ultimately, the friendship is much more important.

Peter S. Beagle is a Grand Master—his 2018 world fantasy award proves it—with numerous other awards and achievements. He has not written very much, overall, but he is best known for The Last Unicorn, which he wrote in 1968 and has never been out of print. I remain fondest of his even earlier book about love after death, A Fine and Private Place. This newest book has decades of praise for Beagle’s long writing career on its cover, from multiple other Grand Masters.

I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is a comfortable read, written with Beagle’s spare, elegant prose, which says only what needs to be said, no more or less. Its young protagonists are quirky and adorable, all convinced of their proper place in a medieval society. They are mostly wrong. But they don’t really need to overturn societal expectations or reinvent tradition. They merely need to learn who they truly want to be.

Robert is a young man who loves dragons which, since his job is to exterminate them like the rats they are, is not a particularly worthwhile trait. Beautiful Princess Cerise expects to someday marry a prince, but she’s not in any hurry about it and is meanwhile secretly teaching herself to read. Crown Prince Reginald looks like a prince, but is not very good at being one, and doesn’t like it very much. They all find adventure, whether they want to or not, and grow along the way.

No new ground is broken in the novel, not really. The only idea I haven’t seen before is the premise that dragons come in all sizes and most are merely nuisances, living in the walls of castles like rats. But there are solid characters working out realistic relationships against a rigid social structure, all the while dealing with dragons that turn out to be far more dangerous than anyone suspected.

I have noticed a trend in young adult literature for its female heroes to be incredibly sure of themselves. I come from an era in which young women often spent most of their stories trying to get over the negative things they’d been taught about themselves. But these days female protagonists start with an astonishing lack of self doubt. They can, therefor, proceed directly to breaking traditions and speaking their minds without hesitation.

Anequs (pronounced Ahn-eh-KOOS) is a fifteen-year-old woman who lives with her family on the remote island of Masquapaug. Her peaceful life is transformed when the last of a native species of dragon hatches unexpectedly and bonds to her as its Nampeshiweisit (meaning belonging to the dragon). Even in Vastergot, the city built by the people who colonized the mainland, the hatching of a dragon is a major event. Anequs must go to the mainland with her dragon to attend a mostly-male boarding school for dragoneers. There, she quickly learns that a Nampesheiweisit and a dragoneer are not exactly the same thing.

Blackgoose’s world-building is wonderfully rich. There are lovely depictions of Native customs and life, somewhat idyllic, but probably accurately based on Native American culture. The Vaskosish colonizer’s world is also well-developed, clearly based on the British colonization of New England, but with its own set of gods and holidays which are reminiscent of Viking lore.

The science of dragon lore is also quite unique. Dragons, you see, can shape the world with their breath. This means that, with proper channelling, their breath can perform chemical reactions to break down elements. In the emerging industrial society of the colonizers, dragoneers use their dragons to create essential supplies. But without proper control, their breath is vastly destructive. Dragons are also instruments of war, and being used to suppress the Native tribes of the West.

Anequs, as a girl from a colonized society, is truly in danger. If she cannot prove herself to be “civilized” enough to control her dragon as demanded, she and her dragon can be put to death. And yet, she speaks her mind repeatedly, and so far has been getting away with it, if not actually converting people to her Native worldview. There will undoubtedly be a second book, as To Shape a Dragon’s Breath has been nominated for a Lodestar Award (Best YA Book), and Moniquill Blackgoose has been nominated for the Astounding Award (Best New Writer).

This book was recently listed as a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in Genre Fiction, to be given to a Minnesota author on May 7th by the Friends of the Saint Paul Library. Two other books previously reviewed here are also nominated: Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer’s and Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs. Congratulations!

Citadel is the “first full-length novel” written by C. M. Alongi, whose publisher apparently doesn’t count her earlier fantasy novella series. (The publisher also doesn’t mention her very popular YouTube channel.) The book reminds me of some of Sharon Shinn’s works, where a story that seems initially to be fantasy turns into science fiction as the plot is revealed.

The protagonist is a young woman named Olivia who lives in an isolated city called Citadel, walled against extreme tidal flooding and incursions by a hostile species known as “demons.” She is somewhere around nineteen years old, but seems older since she is mourning her fiancee, killed a year ago in a battle against the demons. She has not been diagnosed with autism, since the diagnosis is unknown in Citadel, but she has many signs of it, along with a discomfort with communicating verbally. She is never without her notebook in which she answers conversation, makes copious notes on natural history, and writes eloquent letters to her dead fiancee.

However, Citadel is becoming a dangerous place to live, particularly for anyone who is in any way different. People who disagree with the current government, which has established a religion around exterminating the demons, are being put to death. It is a very bad time for a young woman, already harassed for her differences, to learn that said demons are sentient. Leaving the city and living in the hostile environment around it might actually be less dangerous for Olivia than remaining at home.

This is a fine SF read, with interesting world-building and a modern female protagonist whose confidence is unburdened by her repressive upbringing and is well up to the adventures ahead of her.