The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street

 

Remember  that old saying - If you want something badly enough, the universe conspires to give it to you? In “Six Spellmakers…”, author Shabnam Minwalla has the universe doing just that, aiding a group of children in their battle against the dark forces lurking in their apartment complex. 

Now if you’re one of those readers whose eyes glaze over at the prospect of yet another tweeny  fantasy about a group of perky kiddos saving the world from malevolent, power-hungry baddies , with the aid of  magical sprites, mysterious relics and the odd spell,  – be warned. But also, be heartened.   For, ' Spellmakers..' is a fresh,funny and contemporary  take on those old tropes, that  also manages to throw in  a cheery shout out for the hidden powers of faith, friendship - and unsightly bric- a- brac.

Nivi Malik, new kid on the block, finds friends –both human and arboreal – at Cosy Castle, an apartment complex bristling with some wildly eccentric individuals.  Unfortunately, she finds enemies as well , chiefly in the form of three elderly women, collectively keeping the flames of snobbery and curmudgeonry blazing  .  When the women, purely out of spite, threaten the existence of the two beautiful ’bimbli’  trees growing near the building, she  steps in to the rescue. (Wizened witch trios? Trees? Seamy politicking? -  Who else yelled ‘Macbeth!’  But I digress. )

The garden, Nivi  insists, is enchanted, and home to mysterious invisible beings that keep the magic alive.  But how do you keep magic alive when a building full of adults can’t help (or won’t dare to), your friends don’t share your fascination with fantasy , and even Google comes up near-empty? Easy, says Nivi – we go ask the magical beings how. With her loyal –if skeptical  - posse in tow, she does just that.

Sure enough, invisible powers set a cosmic Plan B in motion, and help arrives from the most unexpected quarters. Newspaper scraps yield the email ids of anonymous advisers (no, not the Nigerian uncle  kind); strange cookware salesmen appear, Gandalf-like,  at Nivi’s door with powerful gifts,  tattoo artists at kiddy parties make surprising revelations -  even the enemy camp yields an ally, albeit an extremely distracting one (described as “..cute. Seriously cute. Runner-up to Daniel  Radcliffe cute.”  I was partial to the Weasley twins myself, but hey, who’s complaining.) The kids supplement these efforts with their own – a little light thievery, some creative interpretation of a list of sacred offerings ( best use of an electronic mosquito racquet in juvenile fiction, ever!!) . But most of all, by exercising that most obscure of mental muscles -  Belief. 

‘Spellmalkers..’ is a breezy, well paced read that had me grinning from go. I enjoyed its wit, and its keenly observed kids’- eye view of the silly adults they must endure.  It also deftly captures the complex  hierarchies and rituals of modern day apartment living.  In fact, the oddball adult characters in the book, and the few bits of their back story that  ‘Spellmakers..’ tosses our way, stayed with me longer than the uniformly pleasant  (and occasionally dishy) kids.  Which is why (SPOILER AHOY!)  I felt a little cheated by the actual Plan – surely an interesting triad of such legendary power would  need more  than glow paint and a fake portent to bring them to their knees ? And surely, such riveting creatures as the Cyclops, the stair-dwelling Gattu, and  the hapless kids of the  ‘vuwuvuwu’ chorus practically scream out for more airtime? Then again, perhaps author  Minwalla intends to take on that mother of all fantasy tropes – the multi-volume series?

No dots on this forehead

Un Lun Dun

Written and Illustrated by China Miéville

China Miéville is best known for the bleak, dystopic worlds he creates in his books. I discovered his work after reading ‘Kraken’, a dark and gripping tale of a London under siege from rival gangs of supernatural forces fighting for control of – wait for it! – a gigantic pickled squid preserved in the British Museum. After that surprising take on Cthulhu, I have read his short stories and am slowly working my way through the Bas-Lag trilogy – all of it impressive, but undeniably dark, disturbing and exhausting . Imagine my surprise, therefore, to discover “Un Lun Dun”, a YA fantasy  by the creator of all that Baroque grimness. It is a wild, whacky pun-a-minute tale with  a crackling pace, and is definitely one of the most inventive books I’ve read in a while, as it busies itself with cheerfully subverting just about every trope you can think of in the YA fantasy genre - starting with  the Chosen One.

It’s just another day in the life of twelve year old London schoolgirl Zanna Moon – until animals start paying her homage, and perfect strangers approach her and call her “Shwazzy”. With best friend Deeba  Resham  by her side, Zanna  finds out that “Shwazzy” may in fact be “choici” – French for “the chosen one.” Soon after, Zanna and Deeba travel through a mysterious portal to UnLondon , a bizarre alternate version (or ‘abcity’) of the metropolis  they call home, peopled by some of the most inventive characters to have graced fantasy fiction in recent years. Zanna’s glorious destiny is revealed to her, and she steps forward to claim it. And why not ? She is tall, blonde, striking looking, troubled to just the right degree, and singled out by UnLondon’s  book of prophecies – enough, by the rules of popular kidlit, to justify her place n the pantheon of fictional world saviours, right?


Right?

Wrong.

For Zanna is vanquished in her very first brush with the evil plaguing UnLondon – Smog, a poisonous sentient cloud  banished from London, that is bent on consuming everything in its path before moving back home.  What now, you ask. Why, time for the loyal sidekick to step forward and get her moment in the light. For as UnLondon quails in the wake of Zanna’s failure, it is unassuming Deeba – short! dark! plump! Asian!! – who steps forward to shoulder Zanna’s responsibility when no one else will. Faced with an entire city of strange creatures whose very leaders seem to be conspiring against them, a bunch of prophecies that progressively turn out to be wrong, and even high level intrigue from the human world ,  Deeba  becomes the UnChosen One.

Leading a band of some of the most unlikely warriors to grace the pages of an adventure story – a couturier with a penchant for paper, a sarcastic half-ghost who periodically goes nude, a bungee-jumping bus conductor , an animated milk carton, even the aforementioned Book of Prophecies who spends most of the book in depression before finally redeeming itself – Deeba sets out  to defeat Smog and his cronies. Along the way, she strikes a blow for the marginalized and voiceless as well – repeatedly through the book, we find her inspiring all manner of enslaved critters to liberate themselves. And even as she discovers the hero within herself, she inspires her ragtag crew to do the same as well for, by the time the final confrontation trundles around (the one trope Miéville is happy to pay homage to) they have evolved from scared and skeptical sidekicks into valiant  individuals in their own right.

Un Lun Dun is frequently funny, sometimes sad and always breath-taking in its imagery and wordplay. Sample -  an army of dustbins adept at martial arts called, quite aptly, binja. Skool, who isn’t a person at all but a group of plucky fish populating an ancient diver’s costume.  A Manifest Station that takes citizens of UnLondon to  other abcities like Parisn’t, NoYork, Lost Angeles, Hong Gone. Entire houses made of human rubbish , using MOIL technology (Mildly Obsolete in London).  Words  literally coming to life when uttered by the fantastic Mr. Speaker. And did I mention the carnivorous giraffes? Miéville doesn’t just create these strange and wonderful creatures – he draws them for us as well. Un Lun Dun contains some excellent black and white drawings, made by the author himself, that bring some of his weirder creations to life. 

If you’ve worked your way through the Harry Potter series, or the brooding ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Philip Pullman, this is a book you will enjoy.  It is a book brimming with ideas, surprises and wit. In a world plagued by that other trope - the multi volume saga -  Un Lun Dun is a refreshing respite.  Gaiman fans might draw parallels to London Below, the weird citadel under London’s streets that features in ‘Neverwhere’. Indeed, Miéville acknowledges both the series and its author in the afterword to this book. But rest assured, Un Lun Dun is entirely child appropriate and  far more cheerful and wholesome than Gaiman’s (or even Rowling's)  vision. It is not childish, however; Miéville weaves in a lot of sub text and some political commentary.

Foremost of these is, of course, the whole idea of a child hero predestined to save the world. Nonsense, says Miéville. The best heroes aren’t born that way;  they are ordinary people who risk their necks for a cause that they may not even believe in. By the end of Un Lun Dun, practically everyone of its citizens – not to mention umbrellas, fish and ghosts - feels like a  Shwazzy. As for his choice of an Asian girl as hero - Huzzah, I say! Especially one devoid of all the twee cultural stereotypes so beloved to mainstream Western fiction (no dots on this forehead!)  Miéville, a noted socialist, takes some potshots at British bureaucracy as well. He gives both Londons incompetent and manipulative bureaucracies to deal with.  People in power deliberately side with Smog, others try to strike deals with it. The Concern, a shadowy group of individuals trying to profit from the presence of Smog are clearly a caricature of the carbon emissions trade. There is even a  sharp take on the racism that  tinged  Western anti terrorism measures  post 9/11 - a bunch of policemen from London attempt to arrest Deeba for being a terrorist (because she ‘terrifies’ a corrupt official), and threaten to harass her family in London if she resists. 

It’s hard to miss Un Lun Dun’s  environmental message either – London may think it is rid of Smog and all its rubbish simply because these have been sent to UnLondon. But Smog clearly has other plans. Sooner or later, Miéville seems to warns us, your rubbish will return to consume you.

So recycle.  Walk to work. Be your own Shwazzy.  And if unconventional fantasy is your thing, read Un Lun Dun.

The Wednesday Soul

‘Deliberately moronic’, ‘brilliantly silly’ – The back cover is as much an invitation as it is a warning of things to come, with this debut novel by Sorabh Pant, a stand-up comedian of some renown. If you like your fantasy grim, your mythology revered and unsullied by contemporary cheek, and the fictional battle lines between good and evil clearly drawn, then this is not a book for you. Author Pant takes tremendous liberties with multicultural mythology in this reimagining of the afterlife, with irreverent swipes at everyone from Gandhiji and Jesus Christ to Manoj Night Shyamalan thrown in for good measure. Pant is clearly inspired by Douglas Adams, author of the terrific ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series , and seems to have attempted to capture the madcap pace and brilliant humour of that classic in his book. Sadly, he doesn’t succeed.

‘The Wednesday Soul’ starts off promisingly enough – Nyra Dubey, aka the Delhi Belle, prowls the streets of Delhi by night, wreaking her own brand of vengeance on sexual predators who have escaped the law. She finds true love in the arms of fellow crime fighter Chitr, a bashful fridge- sized man with a curious immunity to pain and a penchant for blue suits. But just when you think things are looking up for our burly and very surly girl wonder, she finds herself dead. Well, murdered actually, though that fact is strangely overlooked when she is labeled a Wednesday Soul – a subconscious suicide – by the denizens running the afterlife.

And what an afterlife it is – chaotic, confusing, bristling with unnecessary procedures and pointless queues and policed by overly aggressive dog warriors – in other words, your average Indian government office. Add to this a seemingly endless cast - sundry winged beings (Garuda doing what he does best; Ayrawat quite literally turned into a jumbo carrier), cranky Ancients, bickering Council of the Afterlife members,a curiously erudite rescue dog turned bodyguard called Bari , the Sanskrit-speaking shade of Dame Agatha Christie, even Che. Nyra is soon knee deep in action, attempting to thwart a coup by celestials turned rogue, while also trying to survive nasty fates as varied as free fall in space, reincarnation as a beaver and suppression between the butt cheeks of a sumo wrestler turned capo. Things get even more confusing when bickering Ancients Chitr and Kutsa return to the afterlife, where they proceed to wage war over control of the afterlife, banishment of Wednesdays and, almost as an afterthought, destruction of the human race as well.

‘The Wednesday Soul’ brims with potential – interesting characters, crazy action sequences, some inspired takes on mythological characters . It keeps up a brisk pace, and has plenty of snappy dialogue. But it is hobbled by a patchy story line, bad grammar, clunky sentences (“Nyra felt as if her body would explode with the blood that this stranger had awoken inside her”) and very poor editing. Factual errors and typos abound; all kinds of intriguing ideas pop up through the course of the book, but seem to have been either forgotten or just abandoned as the storyline hurtles along. The narrative itself switches routinely from the main story to textbook mode explaining obscure sub plots and backstory, which struck me as rather lazy storytelling . The plot is also strangely preoccupied with that anatomical part the author terms ‘the badlands’ – the backsides of characters routinely double up as emergency exits, cubby holes for lost passwords or temporary holding cells. (Douglas Adams, it may be noted, managed to sustain reader interest in the riveting saga of Arthur Dent over five volumes without once descending into crassness.) Also a little hard to stomach was the celestials’ fascination with Nyra’s taser – come on, we are talking supreme beings with limitless powers and more than a nodding acquaintance with far superior mythical lightning bolts, vajras and astras.

Far more interesting is the parallel love story unfolding on earth, between the hapless Inspector Sharma and morgue in charge, Dr. Tashiding. Infact, Sharma emerges as the most likeable character in this novel – a Sanskrit speaking Chulbul Pandey, if you will – attempting to navigate a new romance, unexpected fatherhood and communication with the dead, armed with little more than bad English and well-honed skills at torturing suspects. Sadly, this odd couple doesn’t get the airtime it deserves in Pant’s prose. But the open end of ‘The Wednesday Soul’ seems to suggest the possibility of a sequel – or several – and perhaps the ballad of Sharma and Tashiding will get a chance to play out in the wake of Nyra’s new adventures.

Thanks to Blogadda for the review copy of this book.

This review is a part of the http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/05/04/indian-bloggers-book-reviews" target="_blank">Book Reviews Program at "http://www.blogadda.com">BlogAdda.com

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Sequels, prophecies ..and socialism 101

Is there a literary trope more tiresome than the prophecy? Just about every fantasy novel I’ve picked up these last few months has been about children variously marked, feared or heralded as ‘The One’ and mysterious strangers swooping in on them to convey them to their destiny. And honestly, shouldn’t ‘The One’ be picked for some reason greater than the accident of birth, or just plain being in a certain place at a certain time (aye, Boy who Lived, that means you.)? Meanwhile, what is it with prophecy-oriented stories and their inability to fit into a single tome, leaving us poor readers scrounging around bookstores and library waiting lists for Books 2 to gazillion? So I should have shied away from ‘The Midnight Charter’ which, apart from concerning itself with not one but two ‘The Ones’ is also clearly only part one of a series, meaning of course that a hundred narrative threads will be left dangling on the last page. As will I, waiting for Book 2.

Then again, when have I ever taken my own advice?

Well, for once that worked out alright since ‘ Midnight ..’ turned out to be a page turner, with a good story ,great pace and the kind of steadily darkening atmosphere that makes you simultaneously cringe and start reading faster . It is set in Agora, a grim medieval city ( imagine a very dark Lyra’s Oxford) that keeps its citizens walled in, where free trade is the reigning-and only- deity. There is no money in Agora, but anything can be bartered – emotions , children, lives (rather fittingly, murder is called ‘life theft'), even a woman’s voice. Children are considered property until they are legally emancipated at twelve, when they are left to fend for themselves, expected to improve their prospects either through marriage or slavery; the slightest hint of disapproval from their masters/ mentors could have them thrown into the streets and deemed unfit for employment. And all the while, the sinister and invisible Dictator does a Big Brother, tracking every move its denizens make.

Half dead from the plague, eleven year old Mark finds himself sold by his own father to Theophilus, the kind doctor tending to them. Nursed back to health by the doctor and Lily, a young orphan and employee of Theophilus’ grandfather, Count Stelli, Mark then begins his apprenticeship with the doctor. But fate has other plans for him; he finds himself being mentored by Stelli, a respected Agoran astrologer while Theophilus and Lily move out into the slums where they unleash a truly subversive weapon in the heart of materialistic Agora – philanthropy.

Mark narrowly escapes public humiliation after he discovers he is nothing more than a pawn in Stelli’s politicking. Rather serendipitously, Stelli’s life is destroyed while Mark inherits his wealth and becomes the toast of Agoran society, where he swiftly learns to be as unscrupulous and manipulative as his old employer. Meanwhile Lily tries to learn more about her mysterious origins even as she struggles to keep the shelter from being shut down .

Tides will turn, of course – it is only a matter of time before Mark falls out of favour with the powers that be, while Lily’s radical notion of giving away property for no reason other than the good of others, catches on and wins her many benefactors. But both children are unaware that they are part of a much larger game, overseen by shadowy figures, and that their fates are linked with that of Agora itself.

‘Midnight..’ does an interesting take on the age old Capitalism vs Socialism debate - Lily and Mark come to represent diametrically opposite points of view , and it is clear that some sort of confrontation lies ahead, even if they are allies at the end of the book. I liked the way Whitley’s characters develop, especially Mark – he goes from confused and scared waif to scheming and manipulative social climber, fuelled mostly by rage at his own abandonment. It is this angst that leads him to forge an unlikely bond with Cherubina, the infantile woman he almost weds in a marriage of convenience, and I would like to see their story evolve in future books in the series.

Rather like Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark materials’ trilogy – though nowhere as dense, pedantic or exhausting - this is a book about the death of ideas – a society based on free trade sounds ideal on paper - a …“..vision of a city where all are equal..where balance, barter and give and take were woven into its very heart and soul…society where value was judged by every individual and no one could force something out of nothing.” But it is, like all other great ideas, easily corrupted and how Lily and Mark either strengthen or destroy the idea of Agora remains to be seen.

The Half-made World, by Felix Gilman

You have to stop and take notice of a book endorsed not just by Eric Van Lustbader, but the queen –Ursula Le Guinn- herself. You stop, notice and, if you are in any way like me, you worry – about overkill, disappointment, and,if the book is indeed a winner, about that interminably long wait, accompanied by much teeth-gnashing, for Part Two to reach your grasping little hands.

A few lags in pace – and a rather lackluster heroine - apart, here’s one for the gnashers amongst us.


Steampunk meets the supernatural in this sweeping tale of a wild, untamed world and the powers that battle for its control. Felix Gilman’s ‘The Half Made World’, part one of a duology, is an inventive rewrite of the settling of America, teeming with complex characters, fantastic devices and a dystopian landscape as compelling as it is unsettling.


To the East of this World are ancient lands that have long since been civilized by the calming hands of science and the arts; the West, however, is young and unbridled, and the object of a long standing war between two rival factions - the Line, a civilization marked by industrialization, a subdued population of slaves, and formidable weaponry; and the cult of the Gun, a loose mob of assassins – each more colourful than the next - dedicated to little beyond destroying the Line and keeping the flag of anarchy flying high. Marking the tenuous zone between the Line’s territory and the uncharted terrain beyond it is the House Dolorous, a sanatorium tending to the wounded of both sides.


This is a world at the mercy of unearthly powers. The servants of the Gun and the Line, with their incessant conflict seem human enough; yet they are controlled by strange forces, invisible God-like beings that a character calls .. ”..not so much political entities as religious enthusiasms, not so much religion as forms of shared mania”. Even the House thrives under the aegis of a mysterious subterranean Spirit that lives in a symbiosis of sorts with its patients, healing them and, in turn, feeding off of their energy. A third faction that had reared its head in a short-lived bid for democracy - the Red Republic – has been vanquished by the Line, and its leader now lies in the House, his mind scrambled by a noise bomb ( arguably the most inventive of the generous array of gadgets Gilman offers us in this book).


Into this unstable world strides Dr. Liv Alverhuysen, former denizen of the genteel East and practitioner of a radical new science called psychology, to try and heal the General. But the General’s mind holds other secrets, and Liv is caught in the crossfire as the Line and the Gun both battle to gain control of him. Kidnapped along with her near- catatonic patient by Creedmoor, a swashbuckling Agent of the Gun, she soon finds herself trekking across the great uncharted lands with her unlikely companions, and a regiment of the Line on her heels.


Gilman crafts great characters, and his World boasts a remarkable ensemble cast. Creedmoor, for instance, is a charismatic anti hero - flamboyant as they come, flawed in all the right places, alternating between glee and shame at his affiliations. . He gets all the best lines in this book, usually in his dialogues with his spirit mentor Marmion, and their relationship – rather like that of a rebellious teenager and a father at the end of his tether – is one of the highlights of this book for me. Chemistry crackles between him and Liv as well, something I expect the sequel to the World will gleefully explore. Then there is Lowry, recruited into the service of the Line as a ten year old, and seemingly well suited to his role as a dispensable cog in its great and terrible machinery. He is Javert to Creedmoor’s garrulous Valjean, doggedly following in the Agent’s trail for a master he fears and resents in equal measure. “Hardly the perfect model, “he thinks, disparagingly describing himself ”.., but effective and cheap enough for mass production. Incapable of disloyalty; he lacked the parts.” Here's a character, intriguing for all his supposed facelessness - heading either for a grand subversion, or utter annihilation, and I can't wait to find out which.

But the most mesmerizing character here is the uncharted world itself, teeming with powerful spirits that no one can really comprehend, save its indigenous people, the First Folk . This vast, yet claustrophobic world, where the lines between the vegetable and animal, the living and non living, real and hallucinatory, seem blurred, and where the very rocks seem malevolently alive, is truly a feat of world building.


By contrast, Liv is a disappointment; insubstantial when standing up besides robust characters like these. In many ways, she seems a half made world herself, spending a large part of the book meekly acquiescing to the experiences that claim her – a loveless marriage, a convenient widowhood, runaway/ kidnap victim- still unsure of what it is she wishes to become. It is only towards the end of the book that she steps out of Creedmoor’s considerable shadow, with a sudden vigour that promises much excitement in Part Two of the book.


Read ‘The Half -Made World’ to discover speculative fiction at its best – capturing the excitement and menace of a world at once threatened and empowered by technology, and examining issues as diverse as faith, national identity and individuality .

Thanks to Tolly Moseley for sending me a copy of the book to review.

And, dear reader, to pique your interest, here’s a short story by the author, set in the same world as this book.

A lot more than just Harry

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
Viking
Release August 10, 2009

How easy it would be to label this book a Harry Potter for adults. Here are all the familiar ingredients — a gifted but unrecognized boy genius with a rather distant family, a school of magic hidden in plain sight that takes him in, a colourful cast of students and teachers among whom our hero discovers himself and, of course, a fearsome evil that lurks in the wings waiting to strike. There is even a school sport involving magic, a sort of supernatural checkers equivalent to Hogwarts’ quidditch. Yet this book is a lot more— a coming of age tale that examines the pleasures and perils of great powers in the hands of the young , loss of innocence, the strength and fragility of love , and the struggle to come to terms with the disappointment of the real world. And though it fails to deliver on the tremendous promise of the first half, it is nevertheless a must read for the audacity in which it turns the rather familiar themes of the fantasy genre around.


Our hero, Quentin Coldwater, is your average teenager in present day Brooklyn, though brilliant and already possessed of strange powers that no one else seems to notice. He finds solace in a series of books from his childhood, about the magical land of Fillory and the adventures of a band of intrepid children there. Then, a routine interview to an Ivy League school leaves him with a dead body and a mysterious exchange with a woman who proceeds to visit him sporadically through the book, and sets him on the path to Brakebills, a college of magic on the banks of the Hudson that is invisible and out of bounds to all but the chosen.


Rather predictably, Quentin emerges as a mage with promise — he shines in his studies, attracting the attention of his teachers, his seniors and a troubled but gifted young student whom he falls in love with. After the adrenaline rush of college, however, life in the real world is a let down. Supported by a generous trust fund run by Brakebills, Quentin and his friends have neither the need nor a practical way to use their powers in conventional careers. Bored and directionless, they rapidly descend into a hedonistic life of drugs, alcohol and casual sex. Then, one of them discovers that Fillory exists for real, and the friends decide to visit, only to have their complacence about their strength stripped away. What begins as a rather casual picnic quickly descends into a horrific confrontation with the Beast, and a battle for their lives against teeming armies of creatures far removed from anything they have imagined, or are prepared for. Barely escaping with his life, Quentin is forced to deal with loss, heartbreak and the realization that he has been nothing more than a pawn in a far greater game, begun long before his initiation into magic.


The first half of the book is overly long, but crackles with energy — the writing is fast paced, the characters are intriguing. Grossman has a great style of writing, sparse yet insightful, and often very funny . For all their magical powers, Quentin and his friends are still just hormonally charged kids, and Grossman realistically reveals the weaknesses and compulsions that lurk beneath their powers . This book will delight fantasy literature enthusiasts like myself, as it doffs its hat at all the greats — Fillory and its child explorers seem straight out of C S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, a wish fulfilling creature reminiscent of the Questing Beast from the stories of T H White, roams Fillory. A drunk student babbles about that Hogwarts highlight, quidditch, and even Edward Lear finds a reference.


Yet Fillory is not the world of childish innocence that is celebrated in these classics,where the morally upright always triumph. It is, if anything, a dangerous place that does not suffer intruders gladly, especially cocky young mages who think themselves indestructible. Nor is it a place for escape, as the fate of the Beast makes clear. At this juncture, the story dons the garb of a cautionary tale, warning against dabbling with forces you may control but never truly comprehend. Sadly, the narrative of the final two sections of the book succumbs to the same exhaustion that has taken hold of Quentin by now.


Quentin himself is a disappointment as a hero and therefore all the more intriguing. He is talented, yes, but also complacent, arrogant and , for all his resilence and dedication to his craft, easily led astray by drugs, alcohol and casual sex. After the unnecessarily prolonged build up to the confrontation with the Beast, his contribution to the battle is little more than fainting and getting bitten. That he lives at all is only because of the sacrifice of someone he has flippantly betrayed earlier in the book. Nor is he very heroic after his brush with death . As he slowly recovers and the truth about the Beast and Fillory unravels before him, Quentin beats a retreat,only to be rescued from himself in an exuberant finale that is straight out of the Matrix movies and clearly indicates that Quentin and company have not wisened up after all.


Still, this is seems like the first of a series that , like the Fillory books did for Quentin, may eventually “get you out, really out, of where you were and into something better.”

The Stranger, by Max Frei

The Labyrinths of Echo, a successful Russian series, makes its English debut with this book. Written under the pseudonym Max Frei, the series chronicles the adventures of a young man of the same name in a mysterious world of magic that he visits in his dreams.


Max the twenty-something character is, by his own admission, a loser . He is also an insomniac with surprisingly vivid dreams that he can recollect quite accurately. Before long, he meets Sir Juffin Hully in his dreams and is recruited to the nightwatch of the Minor Secret Investigative Force of the Unified Kingdom. Max, it turns out, has magical powers he himself is unaware of, which he now uses as a policeman of sorts, hunting down perpetrators of crimes involving magic and other supernatural forces.


What follows is a hilarious romp through Echo, capital city of the Unified Kingdom as Max quickly earns a reputation as a formidable investigator. He finds a motley crew of friends in his new role – the hilarious Melifaro, the upright Lonli-Lokli, and the beautiful Melamori. Echo is far removed from anything Max has ever known – clothing is strange, one night stands are formalized; he finds he can communicate with his colleagues and even dogs through Silent Speech. The language of Echo is formal, almost archaic, with everyone being addressed as 'Sir' or 'Lady'. Technology is nowhere near the levels Max has been used to. Yet, magic and telepathy more than make up for all this, as does the cuisine, that finds frequent mention in the book. Max readily leaves his old world for Echo, yet it is never far from him, slipping out in references to Rutger Hauer and Diana Rigg, and in the ‘awesomes’ that sometimes pepper his Silent Speech. Max is a success in Echo like he never was back in his old world, with one exception - his losing streak with romance seems to have followed him to Echo too, as seen in his unsuccessful flirtation with Melamori.


Now the basic premise of this story is not in itself new; travel between worlds and the transformation of a character from zero to hero have been perhaps the most enduring literary fantasies of our times, explored in tales as diverse as 'Gulliver’s Travels', and 'The Chronicles of Narnia' and more recently, such blockbusters as the Dark Materials trilogy and the Harry Potter series. The book jacket itself makes a reference to the Boy who Lived, likening Max to an adult, cigarette-smoking, less than successful Potter. In that respect, 'The Stranger' does tread rather familiar ground – magical occurrences, strange powers and stranger characters with tongue twisting names. It also seems to doff its cap at its literary peers; Max discovers Echo much like Alice does Wonderland . And he crosses between worlds in a manner reminiscent of Harry Potter and his magic bus.

Very little of Max's past is revealed; in fact, the reader is thrown almost from page one into his new world. The book is not very plot driven either, but is presented as a series of cases that Max and his friends solve, that can quite easily be read out of sequence. The cases all seem very speedily solved; Max’s own hitherto hidden powers conveniently emerge in times of danger to help him escape and be hailed yet again as hero. This is an extremely long book (544 pages) and a certain monotony does set in after a while, with its case-driven structure. There is quite a lot of slapstick humour that I did not always find amusing. I was also annoyed by the central female character, Lady Melamori. Here is a seasoned investigator at ease when booking criminals, yet dissolving into tears or nervous skulking in the presence of Max, whom she is clearly attracted to. Their flirtation and frequent tiffs would have been more fitting in a high school romance, not this otherwise engrossing book.


For all the issues I had with the book, it is nevertheless very readable, equal parts whimsy and mystery. It is also quite clearly meant as an introduction to Max and this enormous cast of characters, paving the way for the other nine books already out in the original Russian. I have a strong feeling that successive books in the series will be more plot-driven, perhaps even darker than this humorous volume.

The one mystery greater than Max’s future in Echo is perhaps the real identity of the author. While a little Google search suggests that the author might be a young Russian woman, I’m quite content to believe in the illusion of the writer Frei, and wait for the next instalment of what promises to be a terrific literary ride.

Thanks to Vida Engstrand from Overlook Press for sending us a copy of the book to review.