A RUIN, GREAT AND FREE

A trilogy and a multiversal crisis conclude, with a bonus follow-up to a previously standalone novel.

The actions of the violent human-supremacist group known as the Black Hand have driven witches, shifters, vampires, and other assorted monsters and their allies into small towns hidden by magic. In the refuge called Moon, some of the restless residents are sneaking out to visit neighboring towns, threatening to blow their cover both to the Black Hand and to the Black Hand’s secret monster backers, the Cult of the Zsouvox. Meanwhile, in the universe from Turnbull’s first novel, The Lesson (2019), Patrice Paige uses technology that the alien Ynaa left behind after their disastrous first contact with humanity to increase her political influence and shield the Earth from all future alien encounters, even as the Ynaa known as Mera rebels against her people’s conquest of other planets. But these crises pale against the larger-scale threat: Both of these universes, and indeed all universes, are threatened by the Zsouvox, a creation of the gods that seeks to devour everything that exists. It’s a lot to take in; as always, Turnbull packs in a ton of plot within a relatively economical number of pages. The advantage of writing in a multiverse is that it allows you to throw in any storyline; whether it makes sense to have added a resolution to The Lesson here is difficult to say. It does share a common theme with the main monsterverse plot, best summed up by that well-known aphorism attributed to Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben: With great power comes great responsibility. If you have magic, physical strength, advanced alien tech, and/or immortality, it behooves you to do the right thing; the trick is figuring out what the right thing is. Turnbull settles the more cosmic conflicts and perhaps even some of the personal ones, but leaves the broader social confrontation of prejudice somewhat more open-ended, other than suggesting that while violence can be remarkably effective in quashing opposition on a small scale, it’s not going to solve the larger problem. Given how central anti-monster prejudice is to the story, it leaves the Convergence Saga feeling curiously unresolved. But it’s hard to say how Turnbull could have resolved it, and perhaps that nagging feeling is deliberate on his part. Magic might fan the flames of hatred, but people don’t need the devil to do evil.

Brilliant and profoundly creative, but not entirely easy or satisfying to grasp.