FSF Magazine, June 2007

by Spilogale Authors

  Within the confines of our shared mind, Osk Rievor said, “What have you done to our grinnet?"

  "It would be—” I automatically began, but then I realized there was no point in dissembling with my other self. So I said, “I don't know."

  Books To Look For by Charles de Lint

  The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version, by Peter S. Beagle, Subterranean Press, 2006, $35.

  Books don't always begin their lives the way readers finally meet them in a library or a bookstore. Sometimes the story just dies on the author. There's nothing wrong with it, per se. It's just not right for him. He runs up against a wall, or runs out of words, and that's it.

  He may abandon it forever. Or he may come back to it and work on it again, and by the time he's done, nothing of the original remains except perhaps a character, or a character's name, or just the title of the book.

  Of course, we don't know this when we meet that book—not unless we read about the author's travails in an interview somewhere. And we certainly don't get to read those false starts.

  At least, not usually.

  But for all of us who loved The Last Unicorn (which, by the way, is a far more meaty reading experience than one might expect from a book about a unicorn), we have that opportunity with this edition.

  Now first let me say that this story doesn't end. It stops abruptly and that's that. You can't go on to the finished book and pick up the story because this lost version of The Last Unicorn bears little resemblance to either the published version or the film which was scripted by Beagle.

  So why would you read it?

  For one thing, it's instructive, especially if you're at all interested in the creative process. For another, it's a thing of beauty, even in its truncated state. Yes, it comes early in its author's career, but remember, Beagle wrote A Fine and Private Place before he started this story. I don't know about you, but I still consider that to be one of the major classics of our genre.

  I know it's frustrating not to have the complete tale in this little booklet, but it's bookended by an introduction and an afterward, and there are scenes and ideas and just plain luminous prose in here that no lover of good writing should miss.

  Some parts are serious without being overbearing, the themes working as well today as they did in the early sixties when Beagle wrote it, such as the dragon complaining that children today taste too much of “clocks and coal oil.” Think about that analogy for a moment.

  And it's funny—the soliloquies of the butterfly, the arguing demon heads—but better still, it's smart funny, written with wit and good nature rather than a Jackass the Movie sensibility.

  One last thing. If you read it, but you're still frustrated by the incomplete story, go to your library and dust off a copy of the published version. It's got all of the above in it—minus the dragon and the talking demon heads, of course.

  * * * *

  Flora Segunda, by Ysabeau S. Wilce, Harcourt, 2007, $17.

  I loved this book. I liked it so much that I read it twice. Once to see how it all turned out, then again because I just adored the voice of Wilce's protagonist: Flora Nemain Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca. Or just Flora, for short.

  What's it about? I'm going to quote from the dustwrapper:

  (But first a quick aside. While some readers might not be aware of this—heck, some readers don't even read covers and book flaps—writing the copy that appears on the inside flaps and the back of a book is a real art. It has to capture our interest, but it can't give too much away. And if you think doing that while summing up the mood and plot of a book is easy, then you've never tried it.

  (As a reviewer, I don't like to talk too much about the actual elements of the plot for fear of spoiling the readers’ joy of discovery, so I'm always in great admiration of those copywriters who do as good a job as was done for this book. I could have paraphrased it, but why ruin a beautiful thing? (Now back to that quote:)

  "Flora Fyrdraaca knows taking shortcuts in Crackpot Hall can be risky. After all, when a House has eleven thousand decaying rooms that shift about at random, there's no telling where a person might end up. But it's not just household confusion that vexes Flora, what with Mamma always away being Commanding General of the Army, Poppy drowning his sorrows in drink, and Crackpot Hall too broken down to magickally provide the clean towels and hot waffles that are a Fyrdraaca's birthright.

  "Yet Flora is nothing if not a Girl of Spirit. So when she takes a forbidden shortcut and stumbles upon her family's biggest secret—Valefor, the banished Butler—she and her best friend plunge happily into the grand adventure of restoring Valefor to his rightful (or so he says) position. If only Flora knew that meddling with a magickal being can go terribly awry—and that soon she will have to find a way to restore herself before it is too late."

  Just typing those words makes me want to read the book again, but I shall keep it closed and concentrate on writing this column.

  Simply put, this novel is one of the freshest fantasies I've read in years.

  The Houses of the City of Califa, and the Butlers that oversee their maintenance, are wonderful inventions, and rival, in my affection, those in classic works by E. R. Eddison and John Crowley, not to mention more recent books like James Stoddard's The High House. (I have an inexplicable fondness for huge rambling houses.)

  The magics are plausible—within the context of the story, of course.

  And that story. It's so personal, yet also manages to take on epic proportions (if only—at times—in the minds of Flora and her best friend Udo) as the pair get deeper and deeper into trouble.

  But it's Flora's voice that will have me return again to these pages. It's individual, full of odd turns of phrase, light as froth and wise beyond the speaker's age. It's the kind of voice that will make you forget about everything you had planned to do so that you can sit and listen as the story unfolds with all its entertaining asides and commentaries.

  And while the tone is light, Wilce still touches on many serious issues, and does so in a non-condescending and believable manner. Flora's life is plagued with difficulties—try being named after one of your deceased older sisters, for starters. Then there are the matters of being shoehorned into a career she can't bear the thought of (to be a soldier, like the rest of her family; she wants to be a ranger scout); dealing with a volatile, alcoholic father; understanding the responsibilities of belonging to one of the Great Houses (even when it's as rundown as Crackpot Hall); and more trials and tribulations than I have space to list here.

  But as the cover flap says, Flora is a “Girl of Spirit” who faces all her challenges, great and small, with an indomitable fortitude. Even when every time she's sure she knows how to make things better, they only get that much worse.

  It's January as I write this, so the year's too young for me to say that Flora Segunda is one of the year's best books. But I will say that it's gone right up to the very small shelf of my favorite books, period.

  * * * *

  The Night Journal, by Elizabeth Crook, Viking, 2006; 454pp; $24.95.

  It's probably going to tax my editor's considerable patience—because after all, The Night Journal doesn't fit a genre definition by any stretch of the imagination—but I found this to be a riveting novel, and you might, too.

  First let me mention an odd bit of synchronicity that was at play when Elizabeth Crook was writing her book: at the same time, Jane Lindskold's Child of a Rainless Year was in production at Tor, and it just proves that when it's time for something to happen, it will. Even if two people will be doing it at the same time.

  As you might remember from the January 2006 installment of this column (and if you don't, and are interested, you can go read it on the Web at: www.sfsite.com/fsf/2006/cdl0601.htm), Lindskold's book was set in the New Mexico town of Las Vegas (which is not the same as the Nevada city of the same name), and featured two storylines. One was of a woman returning to the small desert town of her past, the other was found in the journal of her ancestor that she was rea
ding.

  The details are completely different, of course, in terms of character and motive and all, but that brief description also fits Crook's book. How often does it happen that a small town sees two novels published about it in the space of two years? As I was reading The Night Journal, I found that I quickly grew familiar with streets and landmarks, both in the past and the present, and happily recognized them when they came up in the narrative.

  Crook's novel is mainstream and much darker than Lindskold's, but they both deliver a loving portrait of the area and address the importance of history in our lives—the personal, and that spread out on the larger canvas of the world around us.

  I highly recommend both titles to you, and I know one thing for certain: the next time I'm in the American Southwest, I'm going to make a point of visiting Las Vegas, New Mexico, for myself. As it is, I already feel at home in the place.

  * * * *

  Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P. O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2.

  Musing on Books by Michelle West

  The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, by Catherynne M. Valente, Bantam, 2006, $14.

  Lisey's Story, by Stephen King, Scribner, 2006, $28.

  Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay, Roc, 2007, $24.95.

  * * * *

  In the Night Garden will inevitably draw comparisons to the Arabian Nights because of the structure of the book, which on the surface of things is fairly comparable. Like Scheherazade before her, Valente's nameless girl tells part of a story every night; unlike the wily heroine of One Thousand and One Nights, she is not facing death in the morning if she fails to interest her audience, who is a somewhat lonely, isolated boy. What instead?

  Valente has chosen an exotic, storybook environment in which to situate her teller of tales; she is a young girl with kohl black eyes who is left alone to fend for herself in the sumptuous and obviously rich gardens outside of the palace proper.

  As an infant, she was placed under an enchantment of words—literal words, written in fine, fine ink across both of her eyes. In the telling of the tales, she is unraveling the enchantment, although what will happen when the last tale is told is unclear. One of the many children in the Court itself finds her, and finds himself enchanted by her stories; he sneaks away at night to hear them, often bringing food, and in turn, she finds having a friend unexpectedly moving.

  Every night, in the garden, she tells this boy a story, and, as in the Arabian Nights, the stories themselves become the narrative, one strand crossing another, one story beginning another, and that story beginning yet another. But the threads in the end wind themselves into a fuller picture, and the book is broken into two halves, each half, with all of its intricate imbedded structure, complete to a point.

  Where the comparison in terms of structure is the obvious one, it's also a facile comparison, because Valente is doing work here that subverts its form, while at the same time staying true to the mythic elements that give the form its power. The women here are earthy, ugly, lonely, beautiful, and often isolated; the mothers are frequently evil, the stepmothers often good; the villains of one piece deserve pity when approached from a different teller's tale, and in some cases, the warranted actions of one set of story heroes affect another set, unknown to them, in the worst possible ways. The underlying myths of creation are elegant, and although they come stretched from whole, new cloth, they have an edge to them that makes them more real than tropes which are more familiar. And all of this is presented in a form that feels somehow antiquated.

  I would never want to attempt structural pieces the way Valente has here—but it felt so seamless and simple while I was reading it that I probably didn't appreciate it fully until I started to write about it. I really, really enjoyed this book; it was a pleasure to read, from start to finish, and the end note of the volume—if there's one flaw, it would be that this is Volume One of Two—was unexpectedly moving. If anything here makes the book sound intimidating, forgive me; it's entertaining first, and thought provoking second.

  * * * *

  As I've said before, I don't read horror. I don't actually like to be scared. I don't particularly like the sex/death metaphor that lies at the heart of so much horror, because in the end, it doesn't speak to me. I realize this is entirely a personal preference; I mean nothing at all against horror.

  A fair question would then be: Why did you pick up a Stephen King novel? And the answer in this case would be: I like the way King writes people. In general, his people are quirky, if not downright crazy—but he likes them, and his characters are informed by his affection for them. And this one caught my eye because it was, in some ways, a love story. Or a loss story. Both of these things do speak to me.

  Lisey is one of five sisters, and Lisey is also a widow—the widow of famous American writer, Scott Landon, who left behind a stack of possibly unfinished writing, a larger stack of the usual detritus that informs any life, and an even larger hole in the life of his wife of many years.

  But he left behind a secret, as well—the secret of his childhood years, half-told, and the secret of the place he went to in those years. A place he once took Lisey, when they were having their first momentous discussion about their future together. A place that she's avoided thinking about in the intervening years, because she was always the stable half of their life together; the woman who could swing a stupid ceremonial shovel in the face of a would-be assassin to save her famous husband's life. The place has an improbable name—Boo'ya Moon—but given Scott's age when he first discovered he could go there, it's understandable.

  Lisey is beginning the slog through her husband's life with the help of her older sister, Amanda ("help” in this case is a verb that is almost, but not quite, unlike the verb that we normally use). Amanda has a history of being a bit peculiar, and a history of being a lot peculiar, and Lisey's never quite certain what she's going to get. But Amanda's annoyance in this case produces forgotten glimpses of photographs, anchors to a past when there's no more future, and Lisey revisits the past, taking us with her. We see the defining moments of lives: we see Scott at his craziest, and at his most vulnerable; we see Lisey and Scott through the bitter year of life in Germany, when they were cut off from the community that they subconsciously relied on. There's very little of the romantic in these glimpses—but King's never been big on that, and there's still a sense of warmth that suffuses even the bitter memories: this is a couple who struggled, and grew, and pulled each other out of oblivion. Literally.

  But Lisey's sisters, in the present, are there to remind us of how complicated any love—any long association—is. In particular, Amanda, kin to Scott in darker ways, serves as both an anchor and a crutch to Lisey when one of Scott's crazy fans begins to pay visits.

  If there's one weakness in the book, for me, it's the advent of Crazy Stalker Guy. Because I was already invested in the characters and the relationships I cared about, I almost resented the wordage given to him, and I think the book would have been just as strong without his presence as a plot device.

  People who dislike the King approach to writing about being a famous writer will probably be annoyed by this book because so much of the life of Lisey and Scott Landon was informed by what Scott did. There's nothing new in that, and I didn't find it offensive or irritating.

  But I found Lisey and Scott, and Lisey and Amanda, engrossing—I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book, all quibbles aside.

  * * * *

  Guy Gavriel Kay has spent so much of his writing life examining history and returning it to his readers, in fantasies designed to draw out and examine key themes, that this book seems like a departure: It's set in contemporary Provence, with contemporary characters, in particular the well-known, award-winning photographer Edward Marriner and his team of assistants: the terrifyingly well-organized Melanie, and the very bright and rather funny Steve and Greg. They have come together to capture some essential part of Provence's history f
or a new book.

  Edward's son, Ned, is at the upper end of adolescence, and has come along for the ride, bringing with him cell phones, iPods, and a bit of attitude. His mother, Meghan, is away in the Sudan, taking her medical expertise to people who are far from able to afford it, and very much in need of it.

  While scouting one of the more unusual buildings in Provence for possible shooting locations for his father, Ned has the good fortune to meet Kate, a girl his age—and he has the questionable fortune to meet a man who is a good deal older and a lot less friendly. Both of these people have parts to play, because while Ned is casually glancing at the accumulation of hundreds of years of history in the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral, history of a type is looking back at him.

  And it starts with a bald, lithe stranger, and a statue of the Queen of Sheba. The stranger, Phelan, because he slipped unseen past two chatty teenagers into the depths of the tunnels beneath the Cathedral, and the Queen of Sheba because when Ned sees her, he knows she's not the Queen of Sheba, tourist guides notwithstanding. Here is Kay's description of the statue, through Ned's eyes:

  * * * *

  She had been made this way, barely carved into the stone, the features less sharply defined, meant to fade, to leave, like something lost from the beginning.

  * * * *

  The paragraph is significant because, in many ways, it encapsulates my experience of reading Kay's work—that the sense of loss experienced when his world slips away, and his tale is told, will be profound, but the beauty of the experience is worth that loss, is perhaps more intense because it's coming.

  There's a chattiness and a friendliness to this book that's immediately accessible (for instance, Ned does something very funny with ringtones), but as Kay introduces a second strange man into Ned's life—Cadell, a man in almost all ways different from the first—there is also a growing sense of old magic and old stories, both unfinished.

  Phelan and Cadell are hunting in the depths of history for sight of Ysabel, the woman they both love, and have loved, for many lifetimes. To both of them, Ned isn't and shouldn't be part of the story—but when Ned calls Greg for an emergency ride, and Melanie shows up instead, all of the expedition finds itself thrown into the chaos of a love triangle that has been reborn, time and again, starting and ending in reunion and in loss.