A fetchingly oddball fantasy with plenty to keep readers awake.
Thanks to mail-order pills, a jaded barista discovers she has the power to change reality via lucid dreaming in Tremblay’s novel.
Edie Stacks is a habitual loner, bitter at turning 30 with little money, a subsistence job as a coffee server, and only her plants and an oddball record collection for her solace. Then an apartment fire drives her out to seek new lodgings in an apartment building full of noisy neighbors. Sleep interruption compels Edie to answer a magazine’s mail-order ad for an “all-natural sleeping pill, made from the exotic plant Tewtew, grown on the pacific island of Luumore.” But there are side effects: She experiences particularly lucid dreams, and the results manifest in her waking life; for example, she dreams of a plant that materializes as a gift to Wolf, a nice guy at the record shop whom she keeps at arm’s length. Determined to turn the phenomenon to her advantage, Edie purposefully dreams into existence a $5 million insurance windfall for her fire losses and then a posh mansion. But in another dream, she violently fights against a sexual assault, and as the line between nocturnal visions and reality becomes blurred, she finds that time itself can’t be trusted. Edie takes Wolf into her confidence, and they share lucid dreams, but there’s a larger game afoot involving otherworldly beings, mass death, and lots of cats. Tremblay, the author of Topaz (2017), ultimately goes an absurdist-comedic route in this work, à la Tom Robbins with a soupçon of Thorne Smith, after presenting readers with opening passages that invoke a Borges-ian sense of unease over the protagonist’s surreal plight. This off-putting vibe is most likely due to a stated gambit by the author, also an artist/musician, to incorporate her actual dreams into the narrative, and they are effectively memorable and sometimes disturbing—and she earns bonus points for using the word oneironaut (a rarely used term for lucid dreamer). Tremblay almost simultaneously released Crash Kitty, a prelude novella; a sample opening chapter is helpfully included here as well.
A fetchingly oddball fantasy with plenty to keep readers awake.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9690172-7-1
Page Count: 346
Publisher: GrindSpark Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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