The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson

Received to review via Netgalley

I don’t know Lovecraft’s work very well, but that turned out to be okay: Johnson’s version of the Dream-Lands works as well without, as far as I can tell — maybe better, because I don’t know what she skipped or twisted, I didn’t make the comparisons others probably make. It stands on its own, weaving Kij Johnson’s skill with Lovecraft’s dark visions; I couldn’t tell you where the gaps are. I think I’d prefer to approach it as I have, because then you can just experience it as a story.

And as a story, it works well: perfectly paced, taking us on a slow quest through a world that’s strange and sometimes horrible, and yet also wonderful. I really enjoyed the way things could be awful in appearance and grotesque in actions, and yet not necessarily evil or unbound by a sense of honour: the ghouls here are fascinating, for all that they’re not the focus of the story, because they eat dead flesh and yet they have a culture, they have agreements, etc. Things are not quite clear-cut.

The main character, Vellitt Boe, is an interesting choice: she’s in her fifties, a former wanderer who became a teacher and who now has to go back to wandering. She’s capable but not perfect, no longer in her prime, no longer quite ready for the hardships of the road. There’s a nice sense of certainty with her: she knows who she is and where she’s going, what her goals are, and she doesn’t shrink from it or try to run away.

I enjoyed this a lot, and wouldn’t mind wandering through the Dream-Lands again. I’m not sure if I’ll read Lovecraft — knowing his attitudes and the way his work ignored women, it might just be too frustrating — but I certainly feel the temptation.

Rating: 4/5

Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees

I’ve been meaning to read Lud-in-the-Mist for ages and ages, and I don’t know why I didn’t get round to it sooner. It is classic fantasy; more like Lord Dunsany’s work than anything modern, though maybe Patricia McKillip might be a spiritual successor in some ways. The prose is glorious; it just feels warm and vivid, though honey-tinged in colour. I felt, reading it, like I could see the city of Lud; like I knew something of the dreams of its people, even if their daily lives were perhaps a little too devoid of the whimsical. It’s a fairly traditional set-up in a way: a town which embraces modernism and turns away from what Fairyland offers, while Fairyland creeps in through the gaps.

There’s whimsy, but there’s also quite serious comments on human nature and human relationships, on people and the kinds of things they do and think. And ultimately, the point about letting in a little Fairyland is a good one: it’s basically a metaphor for imagination and fun, and that is something people need.

The characters are interesting because they’re not what you would expect from modern fantasy; they’re not great people, they’re not heroes. The main character is a middle-aged man who just wants to protect his son — a son he doesn’t understand, but whom he loves all the same, and maybe is only just realising how much he loves. Nathaniel Chanticleer isn’t a particularly good man, nor a particularly clever one — in fact, he can be rather silly; he’s not some exemplary chosen one. He’s just the one who happens to be there, and just happens to do the right things, because of perfectly ordinary emotions.

I really enjoyed Lud-in-the-Mist, probably for the same reason I enjoyed Dunsany: it’s a kind of magic that I don’t find in modern fantasy enough, an old enchantment.

Rating: 5/5

Broken, Susan Bigelow

Perhaps it’s not surprising after Ryan @ SpecFic Junkie‘s review, but I really didn’t enjoy this book either. The set-up sounded kind of cool: I enjoy superhero stories in prose, because it’s a style of story I’m very familiar with from a childhood watching cartoons and Lois & Clark, but I’m not the world’s most visual person and sometimes comics really don’t work for me because they require more of an eye for detail. And a superheroine who has lost her powers teaming up with a guy who can see the future, in order to save a kid — okay, I’m in.

In execution, though, the prose is rather… dead, and the characters are exactly as one-dimensional as Ryan warned me. And the whole thing with the polyamorous household where polyamory has apparently been brought to human culture by aliens and everything’s weird and… um, no, I know a couple of people who are in polyamorous relationships, some of them like the one described, and it’s just… not that shocking.

Despite the cool-sounding premise, I was pretty much immediately turned off by main characters’ self-pity. Like Broken: she names herself Broken because she’s lost her ability to fly. And she fritters away her life because she’s broken. And yes, yes, we get it, you’re broken, your whole identity apparently depended on being able to fly. Right. Tired of that now!

Rating: 1/5