THE WORD OF THE MUSE

In Portman’s conclusion to her YA epic-fantasy trilogy, a teenage novice fantasy writer, trapped in the world of her amateur fiction, attempts to support an uprising on a doomed planet.

In The Twin Stars (2021), the first installment of this series, 16-year-old Olive Joshi, the granddaughter of a successful Indian author, was transported into a universe she’d concocted in her own mind, featuring planets roasting in an unstable binary star system. In this place, tyrant Burnash faces opposition from his superpowered sister, Coseema—a confident, idealized version of Olive herself. However, Olive’s arrival has coincided with—or perhaps caused—a series of calamities. Coseema became corrupt in her desire to become all-powerful, and solar flares and heat storms have increased. Olive, meanwhile, is seen as the “Muse,” a goddess figure; only Coseema and some rebels know her real identity. However, when she’s separated from her reality-changing pen and notebook, she’s as helpless as any minor character. Olive tries to aid the fight against Burnash by using her knowledge of her villains, including their conflicts and motives. But, as their creator, she’s guilt-ridden over what she’s wrought: “What have I done? Everything—all of this—is my fault.” The notion of a writer trapped in a setting of their own making is hardly original; for example, Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart (2003) taps into the same idea, as does Sangu Mandanna’s Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom (2021) with drawings, rather than prose. However, Portman shows skill when it comes to pacing, executing twists, and escalating stakes, and this effectively carries this concluding story along. Olive, as an unpracticed storyteller, hasn’t thought things through entirely, so there’s justification for occasional sketchiness and derivative elements; it explains why creatures called Deimons are a little too close to the Dementors of the Harry Potter series, for instance, or why the climax seems pulled directly from the pages of Marvel or DC Comics. Still, the fact that both Portman and Olive strive to find goodness in every character—even evil ones—is praiseworthy.

A fiery denouement to a metafictional fantasy tale.