** WARNING — POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD **

I discovered a new term (to me) for a more specific genre than simply “fantasy” which describes this book.  This is a ‘portal fantasy’ – one in which someone from today goes through a portal into another dimension or another world (either accidentally or knowingly).  I don’t have any pre-conceptions over whether portal fantasies are typically good or an over-used plot device.  It’s simply a means to establish a character as a stranger in a strange land as far as I’m concerned.

The portal device is used here as teen Saffron Coulter falls through such a portal to enter a different realm known as Kena.  There, she adopts quickly to living the native life and getting involved in social and political issues.  Saffron meets Gwen, who was also born on Earth and is now known as a Worldwalker because of her ability to travel between multiple worlds … except other than coming to Kena, we aren’t aware of any other world-walking.  Saffron also becomes a Worldwalker and is granted a little bit of awe and respect for it.  Not quite sure why or why the residents of Kena would just accept that someone can walk between worlds/realities.

There is some political strife going on and Saffron gets drawn in to the conflict, which has Saffron and friends on the run.  But even the threat of capture or death isn’t nearly as concerning to Saffron as what people on Earth might think of her having disappeared without a trace.  And Saffron is just beginning to discover her sexuality and develops a lesbian sexual relationship.

Author Foz Meadows is certainly ambitious with her desire to take on LGBT issues and race issues in a social sci-fi adventure.  I applaud the effort but wish that there had been a stronger story and better character building so that the issues might stand out a little better.

The biggest problem is that the characters are just boring.  It appears as though there is a lot going on, but the journey is rather dull and it’s really hard to get behind or care about these people.  Saffron didn’t do anything to make me dislike her, but she also never rose up to ‘become somebody’ worth following.

Early on we had a couple of chapters that were nothing more than massive info dumps.  Having Saffron go through a portal and run in to some people from Kena led to those people (Zech) simply telling Saffron all about the place and what to expect.  I don’t make notes in my books too often, but I couldn’t help notating the massive info dump because it really got the story off to a horribly slow start.

Meadows also relies on dumb luck a little too much.  One of the biggest cases was when Saffron’s blood was a the only one that matched for a transfusion.  Yes…Saffron from another world/realm/reality was the only one who had the same blood.  Whew!  Wasn’t that lucky?!

And then came on of the biggest shocks for me…  Just a little over 2/3 of the way through the book Saffron comes face to face with a dragon.  A DRAGON!  Okay…cool.  It’s a fantasy.  Except that nowhere in the previous 340+ pages is it even mentioned that Kena is a place that has dragons. (You know it’s easy to search for words and terms on Kindles!)  There are some on banners and flags earlier, but even in that massive info dump early on no one says to beware the dragons. It’s as though we took a massive left turn on our journey and forgot to tell everyone that we turned.

Penance.  Magic.  Battle.  Blood.  These four words become a mantra at one point and I feel as though Meadows was trying to use these four words as the basis for the story.  It would have been great if she had, but sadly these four things get lost in a morass of trying to do too much.

Books with a social relevance, particularly those of LGBT and race issues, can be really fantastic.  These are issues that we are taking a hard look at in our own world.  But you still need a solid story and characters with depth to hold a reader’s interest.

Looking for a good book?  An Accident of Stars is a portal fantasy by Foz Meadows that takes on some tough social issues but delivers it in a sloppy, dull tale.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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An Accident of Stars

author: Foz Meadows

series: The Manifold Worlds #1

publisher: Angry Robot

isbn: 0857665855

paperback, 496 pages

I wasn’t a huge fan of the first book in this series (see review here) but I found it intriguing and compelling enough to give it another shot.  I do think that The Conclave of Shadow steps it up a notch, but is plagued by the same problems that I had with book one.  I give author Alyc Helms kudos for going out on a limb and trying something a bit different – even if i doesn’t quite work for me.

Missy Masters (also known as the hero Mr. Mystic) has been trying to lay low since her last venture into hero-ing but some secret technology has been stolen from a museum and the balance of power in the shadow realm is shifting.  Mr. Mystic is going to need to get involved, but she will find it difficult to tell who her friends are.

This book moved much faster for me, but I suspect it’s because I was already aware and prepared for the back-and-forth nature of the narrative as well as the changing gender in our central character.  Anyone picking up this book ‘blind’ will likely struggle with understanding that Missy Master is also Mr. Mystic and when she is he, he is referred to as a male.  Once this premise is accepted … and understood … then the reader is able to get in to the story itself.

Helms combines pulp super-heroics with Asian martial arts and a fantasy-oriented ‘Shadow Realm.’  It is ambitious and the action moves along splendidly.  And still … I can’t quite get in to this.

Everything about this book appears to be directed right at me.  I love the old action/superhero pulps, Oriental mysticism, and alternate world fantasy.  So why don’t I take to this more?  I don’t know.  I never draw a real strong relationship with Missy Masters.  I’m never truly in her corner, rooting for her to succeed, and that’s clearly a problem when the focus is so strongly on one individual over-coming certain odds.  And perhaps that is what this comes down to – uncertainty about whether this is a story of a character overcoming odds, or an adventure story featuring a particular character.  There is a difference which isn’t clear here to me.

I still rank this slightly above average and would read another, but this certainly isn’t a shout-out recommendation.

Looking for a good book?  The Conclave of Shadow by Alyc Helm is a fast-paced, but sometimes confusing, adventure in the tradition of the classic pulps, laced with mysticism and fantasy.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Conclave of Shadow

author: Alyc Helms

series: Missy Masters #2

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857665189

paperback, 336 pages

Some authors have a lot of pressure placed on them, usually due to a giant success at some point.  Peter S. Beagle is one of those authors, thanks to his book The Last Unicorn (which was first published back in 1968!).  Any book published by Beagle will always be much-anticipated and compared to Unicorn.  As I’ve never read The Last Unicorn, there will be no comparison’s here!

But I do recognize the name so I was anxious to see what the hype was about.  And I have to say I was disappointed.

Friendships and gods.  This book is a leisurely stroll through the summer with a few friends who welcome the new girl, Lioness Lazos into their fold.  But Lioness has an unusual past (and perhaps more unusual future) and she will bring about some interesting change among the group of friends.

Beagle is a very poetic writer.  This is clearly his strength.  I was drawn in to his work by his prose:

The guitarist grinned, accepting the challenge, and launched into a minor-tone ballad with a sinuous, arching melodic line, like a cat stretching itself in moonlight.

…

Then she was in the cab and gone, and he was standing naked in the motel doorway, looking out at a drizzly Chicago dawn, already sucked cold and colorless by the vampire wind.

It’s gorgeous writing.  But it’s also boring.

We get sucked in, but we have nowhere to go.  We hang out with these friends on these long summer days, and there’s something interesting going on, but we want to jump in and find out what it is, not wait for it to maybe reveal itself.

About halfway through the book the actual story starts to develop and for about one chapter I was really interested.  It looked as though the plot was finally moving.  But then it slows back down.

I took this journey because it promised to be interesting.  Instead we get characters who could easily be my friends, and some poetic prose, but a plot slowed down by the poetry and mood.

Looking for a good book?  Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle is a poetic fantasy that spends too much time being poetical rather than developing the story.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Summerlong

author: Peter S. Beagle

publisher: Tachyon Publications

ISBN: 1597801062

hardcover, 256 pages