Review: The Bedlam Stacks, by Natasha Pulley

In 1859, ex–East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall with an injury that almost cost him his leg. When the India Office recruits him for an expedition to fetch quinine--essential for the treatment of malaria--from deep within Peru, he knows it's a terrible idea; nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is eager to escape the strange events plaguing his family's crumbling estate, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for the edge of the Amazon.
There he meets Raphael, a priest around whom the villagers spin unsettling stories of impossible disappearances, cursed woods, and living stone. Merrick must separate truth from fairy tale, and gradually he realizes that Raphael is the key to a legacy left by generations of Tremayne explorers before him, one which will prove more valuable than quinine, and far more dangerous.

"He wasn't crude work but the ruin of something fine."

Natasha Pulley's The Bedlam Stacks is an atmospheric story set in Chile and filled with magical realism, full of wonder. We follow Merrick, a disabled character, as he has to join an expedition he would have rather abandoned because of his new disability. In the liminal space of a town his grandfather used to visit once, he will find Raphael, a mysterious man who seems to be ailed by a strange condition.

The prose as always with Pulley, was spectacular, so very simple and yet complex and magical. It's a slow reveal of a novel, a quiet treasure that one should savor. The magical elements come together slowly, revealing the magic behind the ordinary and beyond the objective European mind, unveiling a wholly different way of thinking.

I appreciated how Merrick was written, exploring his disability and his struggles in a very believable way, and I loved what we got to see of Raphael. Their feelings are never made explicit, but this is undoubtedly a love story, one that has a bittersweet ending. Like other Pulley characters, they are flawed and sometimes nasty, but always so very human. And fans of the Watchmaker of Filigree Street will find an incredible cameo and appreciate even more a beloved character.

The magical realism aspects were very intriguing, especially once the veil is lifted and things are revealed to be much more than they seem at first glance. The other characters feel a bit empty, with only the physician having a little depth.

The Bedlam Stacks is a quiet marvel.

✨ 4 stars

Snippet: Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages

 

San Francisco in 1940 is a haven for the unconventional. Tourists flock to the cities within the city: the Magic City of the World’s Fair on an island created of artifice and illusion; the forbidden city of Chinatown, a separate, alien world of exotic food and nightclubs that offer “authentic” experiences, straight from the pages of the pulps; and the twilight world of forbidden love, where outcasts from conventional society can meet.
Six women find their lives as tangled with each other’s as they are with the city they call home. They discover love and danger on the borders where mystery, science, and art intersect.

There's love in this novella. Ellen Klages' Passing Strange is an interesting exploration of the world of pulp covers and queer nightclubs in the '40s, a discreet tale of magical realism through paper and paint, and a lovely forbidden love story. The build-up is excellent, slow and rich, and the payoff is quick but earned. A delightful and haunting story that can be read over the course of an evening, Passing Strange also won the World Fantasy Award.

✨ 5 stars

Review: Keeper of the Dawn, by Dianna Gunn

 

All Lai has ever wanted is to become a priestess, like her mother and grandmother before her, in service to their beloved goddess. That’s before the unthinkable happens, and Lai fails the trials she has trained for her entire life. She makes the only choice she believes she can: she runs away.
From her isolated desert homeland, Lai rides north to the colder, stranger kingdom of Alanum—a land where magic, and female warriors, are not commonplace.

This is a novella that should have been a novel. Dianna Gunn's Keeper of the Dawn is something that I really think would have benefitted from a longer format. The story feels incomplete: it presents us with the bare bones of what's happening, but not much space is given to the characterization. The protagonist, Lai, goes from point A to point B to point C, and we're told that she's experiencing incredible turmoil, but we don't see it.

And it's really a shame, because the plot is interesting. It's pretty straightforward, but that's not a bad thing: Lai is desperately looking for a place where she belongs. But we don't see the conflict, we don't see an exploration of what she's feeling. Even the world-building is a bit under-developed, with tantalizing tidbitds that I would have loved to see more explored. Questions abound: how and why did Lai's community come to be? Why did they develop such a gruesome way to select their priestesses? What about the neighbor kingdom?

The wlw romance, in the third part, is the saving grace of this novella. While we don't get to see how exactly Lai fell in love with her partner - especially in light of the fact that it's a union that would be strictly forbidden or not talked about in her own community - their love story is explored delicately and with nuance. Lai's asexuality, while not explicitly named in a fantasy world, is exactly that: asexuality, and it doesn't hinder her blossoming romance. It was refreshing to read a sapphic romance with an asexual protagonist who doesn't compromise on her self. It was a lovely exploration that was given enough space inside the narrative.

Keeper of the Dawn isn't an excellent speculative book, but it's a lovely romance with an asexual protagonist.

✨ 3 stars

Review: Peter Darling, by Austin Chant

 

Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.
But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.

Sometimes you see a book's premise and you just know that you have to read it. Peter Darling by Austin Chant is a dazzling novel that takes your hands and asks you to believe in fairies once more. I've never been particularly taken with Peter Pan, but this retelling and sequel manages to strike a chord deep within oneself. If you ever felt you couldn't belong, this is the book for you. It's a heartfelt tale about finding oneself and growing up and finding companionship despite all adversity.

The book starts in medias res, the past slowly unraveling as we witness Peter's return to Neverland, his first meeting with Hook after many years, as we sense the attraction between the two grow from swordfighting to more and more. Theirs is a pairing I can honestly say has never crossed my mind, especially given their respective ages in the original novels, but Austin Chant makes it work perfectly. Peter, grown up and terribly unhappy with the shackles he was forced to don once more when he returned to his family, finally decides he can't take it anymore and returns to Neverland with the help of an aged-up Tinkerbell, always nonchalant in her cruelty and terribly fond and protective of Peter. Neverland isn't as it once was, and Peter falls easily into old schemes, unable to change. But it's not his fault, at least not consciously: the island is a haven, and as such clouds memories. It's only with the help of the Fairy Queen that Peter is able to unveil his past.

It's a past he doesn't want to relive, nor return to. And yet it's him that awakens in Hook the man's own lost memories, lost to decades spent on the island. James Hook, once he remembers who he was and too his own trials, is a softie. He just wants to protect Peter, and take him back home, save them both from the danger of losing oneself in a fantasy. Peter doesn't want to, not when only in Neverland he can truly be himself, but with the help of Hook he realizes he can be himself even in the real world, or rather, he can be himself with Hook and the world is none the wiser.

Peter is transgender; his life before Neverland, and when he bent back home before the beginning of the novel, is described with infinite kindess. His parents are blinded by society's expectations, and can't see how they are harming him. His brothers, too, are blind to it, but we don't really see how they act in the years leading to his decision to leave again.

One thing I would have liked to see more is a deeper exploration of Neverland and the way it works. The fairies are eerie creatures, not the ones we know from folklore; a kraken inhabits the waters. The island is elsewhere and exerts a certain kind of control over its denizens, but Hook often mentions known pirates, and there's a treasure buried on land. The island creates illusions to keep happy those who find themselves there. I wouldn't have minded a longer work, if it meant to flesh out more these aspects.

As it stands, the book is a lovely tale, heartwarming and profound, that will leave you giddy.

✨ 4 stars