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OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "What matters in prison is not who you are but what you want to become. This is the place of true imagination."

Rene Denfeld, the author of The Enchanted has the heart of a warrior and the soul of a poet. She has written a novel about identity, understanding, the roots of crime, the reality of prison life, the possibility for redemption, and the ability of people to use imagination to rise beyond the purely material to the transcendent. There are three primary and several very strongly written secondary characters whose stories are interwoven.

In the death row of a stone prison somewhere in America, a nameless inmate, entombed in a lightless dungeon, has constructed a fantastical appreciation for the world he inhabits, bringing a glorious light into his Stygian darkness.

 "The most wonderful enchanted things happen here—the most enchanted things you can imagine. I want to tell you while I still have time, before they close the black curtain and I take my final bow."

In reading, he has the freedom his external circumstances preclude. And he interprets his surroundings through a magical lens. The rumblings of tectonic activity become golden horses racing underground. He sees small men with hammers in the walls (a particularly Lovecraftian notion) and flibber-gibbets, beings who feed on the warmth of death itself. He visualizes his very sweat rising to join the atmosphere and raining down on China. He is also able to perceive feelings and needs in others, observing from his isolation, and offering a bit of narrator omniscience. That he is able to find enchantment in this darkest of situations is breathtaking. I was reminded, in a way, of Tolkien’s Gollum, the battle between the darkness and the light within a single being. But enchantment is not reserved for the inmate alone.

An investigator, known only as The Lady, is working on the case of a prisoner named York. After being on death row for twelve years, York had decided to abstain from any further appeals. The Lady had been hired by York’s attorneys to look into his case. We follow her as she unearths a horrific past that helps explain how York came to be where and who he is. She has a history of her own that informs her ability to relate to her clients. Once upon a time she needed a redoubt of her own.

 "What did she think about during those endless hours in the laurel hedge? As a child, she made an imaginary world so real that she could feel and taste it today. Sometimes she would imagine that she and her mom lived on a magical island where the trees dripped fruit. Other times they traveled all over the world, just the two of them, like the best of buddies. In all the stories her mom was whole and she was safe. When she left the laurel hedge, she would bend the thick green leaves back, to hide where she had been. And when she came back the next day, crawling with a sandwich she had made of stale bread with the mold cut off, and hardened peanut butter from the jar, the magic would be waiting for her."

She has enchantment in her adult life as well, while pursuing her investigation, as she is dazzled by some of the natural beauty she encounters. A fallen priest tends to the spiritual needs of the inmates, but he guards a secret that he desperately needs to confess. While he offers what comfort he can to the inmates, who can really see him? Who can forgive him?

Much of this novel is about seeing and being seen, of crime, punishment and forgiveness. The Lady’s role is to see the prisoners, see their history, see what lies beneath the awful exterior. She is respected and admired, but not much seen herself. Many of the inmates and guards get by precisely because they succeed in remaining unseen. Prison is a dangerous place in which to be seen. Those who see might use that vision for dark purposes.

Denfeld lifts a wet rock to reveal the maggot-ridden structure of unofficial prison governance, the corruption and cruelty that permeates this world, even with a fair warden nominally in charge. Corrupt guards ally with brutish alpha inmates for their mutual gain. There is considerable detail about prison life, including such things as why metal food trays are used instead of plastic, how the bodies of the deceased are handled, what events are considered disruptive and what are considered ameliorative, and even some history of the prison, including reasons for elements of its design. She also looks through the eyes of the warden and the guards, offering keen insight.

The story lines include learning what The Lady discovers as she looks into York’s past, following the travails of a new, young, white-haired prisoner, seeing how corruption in the prison operates, and accumulating bits of the nameless prisoner’s story. There are indeed monsters inside the stone walls, as there are monsters without, both drawn to the despoiling of innocence and beauty. But in this pit of ultimate despair, where all hope is lost, there is magic of another sort. Life may be harsh and death may be near, but welcoming the golden subterranean steeds, attending to the little men with hammers, imagining elements of one’s self traversing the planet, travelling along with the characters in a book, seeing, really seeing others, can lift one beyond the cares of the physical world.

Can there be redemption for the horrific crimes these condemned men have committed? Should they die for their crimes, whether they want to or not? Might it be a harsher punishment, even crueler, to keep them alive?

Rene Denfeld has a considerable history. She is an investigator for death-row inmates, and thus the model for The Lady. Her knowledge of the prison world is well applied here. She wrote a piece for the New York Times Magazine on the impact on children of being raised by cognitively impaired parents, a subject that is significant in the story. In addition, her 2007 book, All God’s Children informs her knowledge of the often violent world of street families, young criminals in particular. She is also an amateur boxer. I would not mess with her.

CONCLUSION: This is simply one of the most moving books I have ever read. Not only is the material heart-breaking, but the language Denfeld uses in her descriptions, the gentle magic of the imagination with which she imbues some of her characters is poetic and stunning.

 "I hear them, the fallen priest and the lady. Their footsteps sound like the soft hush of rain over the stone floors. They have been talking, low and soft, their voices sliding like a river current that stops outside my cell. When I hear them talk, I think of rain and water and crystal-clear rivers, and when I hear them pause, it is like a cascade of water over falls."

While there is enough darkness in The Enchanted to fill a good-size dungeon, it is the moments of light, the beauty of language and imagination, and the triumph of spirit that will cast a spell over you that will last until you shuffle off this mortal coil.

NOTE: This review was originally posted on Will's blog. Author picture courtesy of the author.

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Order “Honor's Knight” HERE 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "The Spirit Thief" 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit Rebellion” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit Eater” & “Spirit’s Oath” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit War” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Spirit's End"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Fortune's Pawn"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Rachel Aaron
Read Eli Monpress series completion interview with Rachel Aaron
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Rachel Bach

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Rachel Bach (Rachel Aaron) lives in Athens, Georgia with her family. She has graduated from University of Georgia with a B.A. in English Literature. She has been an avid reader since her childhood and now has an ever-growing collection to show for it. She loves gaming, Manga comics & reality TV police shows. She also blogs occasionally on the Magic Districts website.

OFFICIAL BOOK BLURB: Devi Morris has a lot of problems. And not the fun, easy-to-shoot kind either.

After a mysterious attack left her short several memories and one partner, she's determined to keep her head down, do her job, and get on with her life. But even though Devi's not actually looking for it -- trouble keeps finding her. She sees things no one else can, the black stain on her hands is growing, and she is entangled with the cook she's supposed to hate.

But when a deadly crisis exposes far more of the truth than she bargained for, Devi discovers there are worse fates than being shot, and sometimes the only people you can trust are the ones who want you dead.

CLASSIFICATION: The Paradox trilogy is an action-packed SF series with romantic elements. Think of it as “Kate Daniels in armor while fighting aliens in space” or possibly a female heroine version of the Shadow Warrior series by Chris Bunch.

FORMAT/INFO: Honor's Knight  is 384 pages long divided over fifteen numbered chapters and a prologue. Narration is in the first person solely via Deviana “Devi” Morris and in the third person for Brian Caldswell, Yasmina and her father. There's also an excerpt from Heaven’s Queen (book III of the Paradox trilogy).

February 25, 2014 marks the Trade paperback and e-book publication of Honor’s Knight via Orbit Books.

ANALYSIS: After reading Fortune’s Pawn, I realized that Rachel Bach (Aaron) wasn't going to be a one-series wonder. The book introduced readers to Devi Morris and the weird world and universe she inhabits. It was an exciting read and also gave out a lot of questions to be answered. I wanted to see how the author would develop the story and what secrets would be revealed. After reading this book, I can say it simply blew my socks off with all its twists and revelations. I've said it before and I'll say it again "Rachel Aaron really knows how to plot a story and outsmart the reader", also there will be mild spoilers for the Fortune's Pawn and the Paradox trilogy so for those who haven't read the first book, be warned.

At the end of Fortune's Pawn, Devi is left a bit shell shocked after the attack on The Glorious Fool. However she can't remember much and cannot explain her intense dislike for the ship's cook. But with Devi being who she is, she soldiers on and soon finds herself in trouble that literally spans the whole universe. The main plot deals with all the mysterious happenings of the first book. What are those things that Devi sees but no one else does? Who or what is Ren, the tiny, quiet girl that is Brian Caldswell's daughter? Who is Rupert and what is he doing masquerading as a cook? What really happened in the Xith-Cal spacecraft? All these and a lot of questions were raised in the first volume and thankfully in this sequel, we get many answers and then some.

This middle volume basically is the author's revelation book in regards to all the main plots, surprises and secrets. If you are like me and enjoy an epic storyline, then you will love Honor's Knight as Rachel Bach gives a story involving a grave threat to all sentient races, scary ginormous alien creatures that dwarf most human imagination and lastly what is the core mystery behind Ren and all the strange phenomena that Devi encountered in the first book. There's also much more about the Eyes, the strange organization that is sparsely mentioned as well as the main secrets involving Brian Caldswell and his motley crew aboard the Glorious Fool that have spawned this storyline.

The plot twists and revelation form the core of this story and this book admirably avoids the middle-book syndrome. Also I feel that with regards to the two book released so far, Honor's Knight is the better one. As to why I think so, it is due to the fantastic pace of the book, beginning with Devi in her post-traumatic state, things soon unravel at a rate that leaves Devi harried and barely able to keep up. The author admirably gives up a multitude of plot revelations that will satisfy all the reader questions that have arisen from the preceding volume and also make this read such a fantastic one. If you previously enjoyed the action and romantic aspects of the story, then be glad as the author builds on those fronts and rather goes out of her way to upstage the reader expectations.

Again with all books, there are usually some negatives to be found. With this book though, it will be very subjective, I didn't find any points that stuck in my craw. However I'm sure that this might not be the case with everyone. If you found something to nitpick about Fortune's Pawn then you will surely find something over here as well. Lastly one point though which has been not covered is the whole Terran-Paradox split and so far a spotlight hasn't been shone on Paradox the world and its society. I would really like to know more and hopefully Heaven's Queen might be the book to do so.

CONCLUSION: If you think you have it all figured out you are wrong, if you thought that this was going to be a simple love story with Devi & Rupert, you would be doubly wrong. And lastly if you thought that the author couldn't mix action with epic SF successfully then you HAVE to read this book and series. Rachel Bach simply outdoes herself with this one and whatever anticipation, I had was simply blown away by the awesomeness of this story. 

For this guest blogpost, I was asked to write something about combining Pride and Prejudice and dragons with a background of war. P&P was essentially a source for characters and details of the setting, not for plot, which is why I don’t spend the whole book re-enacting the Elizabeth and Darcy story. (I also stole some dialogue directly – it’s amazing how modern Austen’s language really is.) I didn't want to write a novel in which the love story was the entire narrative arc. So I asked some “What-if?” questions about changes I could make that would lead to a more epic story.

There’s a little known secret about P&P; the whole time it’s occurring, there’s a war going on. The only real indication of this is at the very end, when Austen’s doing her wrap-up of all the characters and says about Lydia and Wickham, “Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme.” All we as readers see of the soldiers is the handsome uniforms and parades, but somewhere outside the boundaries of the story people are dying.

Since this was pointed out to me years ago, I've thought about it every time I reread the book. So when I decided that I was going to rip off P&P for my fantasy romance, I decided that I would foreground the war more than Austen does. I didn't want to write a lot of battle scenes or soldiers in camp, first because military SFF is just not that interesting to me, and second because that wouldn't allow the kind of social interactions between my characters that I wanted to play with. However, I also wanted war or the threat of war to be a fact of people’s lives, putting urgency into decisions that otherwise might be delayed. That dictated some of my character choices; I needed people in positions of power and responsibility, not men of leisure like Darcy.

Additionally, the war element is also in part a personal response to September 11. I will never forget the feeling in my gut as I realized that the plane crashes were an attack, as I watched the Twin Towers fall. The war that started then hasn't ended yet. I don’t think I could write a story now that isn't in some way shaped by that terror and by the subsequent steady pulse of violence. It’s like the universe’s background radiation; I can go long times without thinking about it, but it’s always there. A lot of fantasy novels have a war or some sort of armed conflict going on, sometimes up front and sometimes in the background, so including one was playing within the tropes. But it was also an expression of my own awareness that things are not all well with the world.

OK, on to a much cheerier subject: dragons. With dragons, the trick was really figuring out how they entered the story. I knew at the outset of writing that there were going to be dragons, and I had this vague idea that they would somehow be important to the war, but it wasn't until I’d been writing for several months that I realized they were an integral part of the plot.

My original notion came from thinking about what would be the most un-Austen like element of fantasy, and large, flying, fire-breathing, destructive creatures fit the bill. I had vaguely imagined them as more or less filling the niche held by luxury barouches, but that changed almost immediately. Obviously if dangerous creatures like dragons could be controlled by humans, they would first and foremost be used for military purposes. But dragons as glorified cavalry horses or fighter jets weren't very interesting in the long term either. The dragons needed to have some sort of agency.

It was when I tied this need for agency to the presence of magic that my storyline really fell into place. I don’t want to go into too much detail here, because that gets into spoiler territory, so suffice to say that the dragons are the driving force behind a lot of the events. They’re strange, distant creatures that humans can’t understand, with motives people don’t know. They aren't gods – they’re vulnerable and mortal and can be killed or captured – but they are also mysterious and unexplained. Because that’s what magic is.


AUTHOR INFORMATION: Anne Leonard was born in Chicago, Illinois and after staying in a whole bunch of states, finally settled in California. She has done her BA from St. John’s College and then gotten an MFA at the University of Pittsburgh. After those two came a Ph.D. in English as well as Law school. She loves Pride And Prejudice and is a Chicago Cubs fan. She lives with her family on the west coast and this is her debut.

NOTE: Author picture courtesy of Judith Love Pietromartire and the author. Dragon art courtesy of HDScreen.

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WSJ on how Dan Brown kept the wraps on Inferno's plot details
Read NY Times Q&A with Dan Brown 
Read a discussion on Dante's magnum opus
The Daily Beast fact checks Dan Brown's Inferno

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate" or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".

The heat is on. There is, of course, a deadline. A mad scientist of a Dante super-fan, who takes theatrical delight in referring to himself as The Shade, would like to bring about a great renaissance for humanity, a reawakening similar to the one that occurred following the Black Plague. As with that earlier event, The Shade, a Batman villain if ever there was one, would like to cull the world’s population by, oh, say, a third. Malthus lives, and has spawned a group of die-hard Transhumanists who think we and our planet would be a lot better off were there significantly fewer of us using up space, air, water, et al, and hogging the remotes. Robert Langdon, returned to duty after sundry life-threatening adventures in Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, has been called in to decipher the clues to where and how Mister Zobrist, (we can’t call him The Shade for 463 pages, can we?) conveniently dead in the opening, has set his viral bomb to go off. Or was he?

Langdon wakes up in an ER, with a head wound, a distinctly fuzzy recollection of the recent past and thinks he is back in Massachusetts. Brunelleschi didn’t design any buildings in New England. That large dome you see out the window means you are in Florence. Oops. And, by the way, there is a well armed, nicely leather-clad biker person heading down the hall, weapons blazing. Check please. He and Doc McSmokin’, a 208 IQ, blonde, pony-tailed physician, named Sienna Brooks, dash out ahead of the ordnance and the game is afoot. This offers an example of something that is entirely depressing. Had that been an American hospital there is no way he could have gotten out without having to sign insurance forms or promissory notes, guns blazing or not. (Mister Langdon. We need you to sign here, here, here, and initial here, here and here. You, with the gun, take a number and have a seat.)

Woodward and Bernstein, in All the Presidents Men, report on G. Gordon Liddy holding his hand over a flame at a dinner party to impress someone or other. He held it long enough to singe himself, and cause alarm in those present. When he was asked “What’s the trick?” he answered, “The trick is not minding.” Reading a book of Dan Brown’s is a far cry from holding one’s hand over an open flame. But there are elements to reading his work that are certainly painful. There are benefits to be had, things to be learned, issues to be raised, but there are clichés to be endured, characterizations to be tolerated, dei ex machina to be ignored. I suppose one might think of it as a form of Purgatory. You can certainly enjoy the good while putting up with the bad. The trick is not minding the latter.

One does not descend into reading Dan Brown’s infernal novel expecting literary power. There are certain formulae at work, and if you are not prepared to be led along, keeping the blinders firmly affixed for the duration, you might do better to read something else with the several hours it takes to work your way through the levels in Inferno. (Yes, there are some) We do not expect to find work similar to that of, say, Louise Erdrich, or Ron Rash, and it would be unfair, not to say unkind, to apply to Brown the metrics applied to writers of more serious fiction. But then, what standards should we apply?

There are two general qualities that merit our attention here, and more specific elements within each. Is it entertaining? Is it informative?

Entertaining:
 - Does the story engage out attention? Or do we find ourselves wandering off?
- Is it fast-paced?
 - Do we care about the characters?
- Is it fun?
- In short, does this make a good beach read?

Informative: 
 - Does it teach us something new?
- Is the information interesting?
- Does it address some larger issue, one of actual significance?
- Does it make sense?

ENTERTAINMENT 

Does the story engage our attention?

Sure. While not, for me at least, as engaging as The Da Vinci Code, I kept turning all 463 pages, eager to find out what there was to be found, info and plot-wise. But I was not exactly panting to get back to the book at every free moment.

Is it fast-paced?

Is the Pope Argentinian? This is what Brown does. Aside from the sort of occasional interruptions that might give the wearer of a pace-maker the sweats, (noted in more detail below) he keeps things moving along. I was reminded of an old (1912) adventure tale, A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. That book was also a series. Battle, capture, rescue, escape, repeat, with bits of information about some underlying subject in the book tossed in to grease the narrative wheels. Ditto here.

Speaking of greasing, you will need to have some eye drops handy to avoid chafing from frequent eye-rolling. It seems that every time there is a need to gain access to some large institution, Brown trots out what seems almost a running joke of Robert Langdon having some relationship with the person in charge. I bet if Langdon needed 3 AM access to the UFO museum in Roswell, we would learn that he had tracked aliens with the museum director and had contributed a live specimen from the Crab Nebula at some time in the not too distant past. The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets? It wasn't Washington who poohed there, or presented a monograph at the esteemed institution that resulted in such a large inflow of contributions that the institution was flush for a considerable period.

In a related matter, I was reminded of two cinematic clichés in particular. In one, the hero and heroine pause as the world collapses around them to engage in a lengthy soulful smooch. (Pay no attention to that incoming missile. Enjoy.) In the second, a child dashes back to the burning-building or alien-infested-spaceship to retrieve her (choose one – favorite stuffy, kitten, puppy, photo of long dead (but really only missing) mother or father). Brown spares us kittens and overlong liplocks, for the most part, but while Langdon and this volume’s Bond girl are dashing from persistent threats like a Florida race track rabbit, (who are those dogs?) Brown pauses the action every so often, inserts himself and his research into the narrative (Bob, Si, relax. We’ll pick this up again after lunch), and offers up the occasional art history lesson. I’m not saying that these are not informative and sometimes fun (as in the case of a particularly organ-rich Plaza della Signoria)

but it does alter the flow in a breathlessly paced novel to…um…take a breather. All right guys, up and at ‘em. Ready, set, flee.

Do we care about the characters?

Truthfully, it is tough not to care about a character that has the face of Tom Hanks ironed onto it, but yeah, I guess, although a lot less than a whole lot of other fictional people. It is fun to see Langdon attempting to recover his memory and figure out who that mysterious woman he keeps seeing in vision-flashes might be. Sienna Galore has a pretty interesting back-story, a large brain, and the usual physical assets required for Brown’s kicked-up Bond-girl roles. So sure, why not. Aside from those two, only a little here and there. Character is not the thing in Dan Brown books.

Is it fun?

As a straight up read, forgetting for the moment one’s analytical inclinations, yes. Brown does revel in puzzles and there are more secrets embedded in Inferno than there are candied items in a fruit cake. And some are quite delicious. (OK, I hereby out myself as a weirdo who likes fruit cake). Unlike one’s experience with fruit cake, however, you will miss out on that weighty feeling of having ingested a brick. Literally, Inferno is a lot more like chiffon cake than its denser cousin. Also there are enough twists to keep the cap machines at the Nogara Coke bottling factory busy for a long time.

Does it make a good beach read?

Assolutamente

INFORMATION

Does it teach us something new?

Si! We learn of a mysterious transnational entity, that Brown swears is based on a real organization, that smoothes out the curves so that people of questionable motives, but certain resources, can go about their business unimpeded. The head of this group might have been well served with a fluffy white kitty and a pinky ring. Brown offers some nifty tour guides to this and that location in several cities, and a fair bit of history on Dante and his most famous bit of writing. He offers some illuminating details on this or that building, painting and sculpture, including where it might have travelled over the centuries (well, not the buildings, of course) and whether the version we see today is a fully original specimen. He also gives us a very good reason to take a tour of the secret passageways in Old World cities.

Is the information interesting?

Leaving aside prophets and their like, before there were mononymous sorts like Liberace, Elvis and Madonna, even earlier than sorts like that English playwright, there was Durante degli Aligheri, known to a certain childhood acquaintance, Beatrice, as that boy who wouldn't stop staring at her, known to certain priors in Florence as the guy who refused to pay his fine and was thus banned for life, and known to us in the 21st century as Dante.

If you find Dante and his best-known work of interest, and really, you should, this book is a lot of fun. Of course what constitutes interesting is almost always in the eye of the beholder. If your thing is video games, well then not so much. (on the other hand, there actually is a lot here that does remind one of video game action, so I take that back) But if you are fascinated with old world history, art and architecture, Dante, the Black Death, Malthusian concerns, and the potential impact of a large human die-off, then Si, molto.

Does it address some larger issue, one of actual significance?

Sicuramente. Two in fact. One of the major elements in the story is the determination by our psycho-scientist billionaire sort that human population is about to reach a dangerous level, one which is likely to trigger all sorts of catastrophes. There are various ways one can address this concern, but the underlying concern is quite real. Brown does us all a service by bringing it to the attention of millions of readers. Another element here is the notion of “Transhumanism.” Basically this entails humans taking charge of our own evolution and using all the technology available to us to ensure maximization of our physical and intellectual capacities. Whether one sees this as a Satanic plot, yet another opportunity for the haves to have even more, or the beginning of a new human renaissance, the subject is worth checking out.

Does it make sense?

In some ways yes and in some ways no. There is validity to the underlying science. But would the baddie really leave a breadcrumb trail for potential foilers to his big bang? That said, it can be fun to descend into the bowels of the earth, or the watery substructures of ancient architectural marvels, however many levels down you care to go.

CONCLUSION: Whether you think that Dan Brown belongs in literary heaven, Hades or somewhere in between, he makes a wonderful Virgil, leading us on an interesting journey, and showing us some things we might not have ever imagined. It may not qualify as a divine book, but Inferno is one hell of a read.

P.S. – One must note that the end of all three parts of Dante’s Commedia (the Divine was added later) end with the word “stars.” Brown does not disappoint on that score.

P.P.S. – And I am sure there is significance to the fact that there are 104 chapters in the book, (plus a prologue and an epilogue, so 106) but I have not been able to suss out exactly what. There are 99 cantos in the Commedia, maybe a couple more with this or that added, but I do not know how one can fluff that up to 106. Yet, I am sure there is an explanation. When (if) I find it I will include it here!

NOTE: This review originally appeared on Will's blog. Fountain of Neptune picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

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Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Graveyard Book
Read The New Yorker's profile on Neil Gaiman

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but aren't."

I turned 7 early in third grade. It was a memorable school year because I had for a teacher a nun with a reputation. Sister Evangelista was about 5 foot nuthin’, and symmetrical. If the "what’s black and white, black and white, black and white – a nun rolling down a hill" joke were applied to her you would have needed a lot more black-and-whites, as her spherical shape would have kept her rolling a long time. It earned her the nickname Cannonball. She was notorious, not only for her distinctive dimensions, but for having a particularly foul temper. Her starched garb also pinched her face into a state of permanent floridity and pursed her lips into a particularly fish-like shape. It was not a happy year for me at school. There would be more than one instance of raised voices, and more than one rap across the hands with yardsticks. I was even banned from the classroom for a spell, to wander the halls for hours, unaccompanied. But I somehow knew that eventually I would be a third grader no longer and would escape the sharpened claws and flapping habit of this creature. She was unpleasant, for sure, but she did not present an existential threat.

When the unnamed narrator of Neil Gaiman’s book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, turns 7, he has troubles of his own. It begins with zero attendance at his birthday party. The family comes on some hard times and must take in boarders. The boy is given a kitten, Fluffy, to ease the loss of his room, but the pet falls victim to a cab, arriving with a South African opal miner, the latest paying resident. Not long after, the miner takes the family car. It is found soon after, at the end of a nearby lane, with a body in the back seat, and a hose running from the tail pipe to the driver’s window. At the scene, the boy meets an eleven-year-old girl, Lettie Hempstock, who takes charge of him, and brings him to her family’s farm, which borders the lane. And so begins a beautiful friendship. (Members of the extended Hempstock family, btw, turn up in several other Gaiman books).

Lettie lives with her mother and grandmother. When strange events begin to erupt in the area–the boy’s sister is assaulted by flung coins, the boy wakes up choking on a coin, and other strangeness afflicts neighbors – Lettie seems to know what is causing them. She is sent to take care of it and brings the boy, her little friend, along. They travel across the Hempstock property and into what seems another world, (mentions of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland, among others, let us know that lines will be crossed) a place that has some threatening inhabitants. Lettie confronts the troublemaker, but the boy reacts to an event instead of thinking and disobeys her lone order, to keep hold of her hand. That is when the real trouble begins.

The boy is far too young for this to be a coming of age tale, but a central element of horror, whether of the Freddie Krueger, Nurse Ratched (or Sister Evangelista) variety, or the flapping beast central to Gaiman’s tale, is one’s helplessness before a greater, and ill-intentioned power. Although he doesn't characterize his intentions as horror-mongering, Gaiman has laid out what he was up to in writing the book:

 "It was meant to be just about looking out at the world through the kind of eyes that I had when I was 7, from the kind of landscape that I lived in when I was 7. And then it just didn’t quite stop. I kept writing it, and it wasn’t until I got to the end that I realized I’d actually written a novel. … I thought — it’s really not a kids’ story — and one of the biggest reasons it’s not a kids’ story is, I feel that good kids’ stories are all about hope. In the case of Ocean at the End of the Lane, it’s a book about helplessness. It’s a book about family, it’s a book about being 7 in a world of people who are bigger than you, and more dangerous, and stepping into territory that you don’t entirely understand."

Gaiman was aware that his work might appeal to young readers for which is it not intended. He said that he deliberately made the first few chapters of the book dull as a way to dissuade younger readers, who would be put off by that and disinclined to continue on to the juicy bits. The world the young boy faces may not be understandable. There is just too much to take in and the author captures that element of childhood quite well.

Changes for the boy at home include the antithesis of Mary Poppins, in the form of one Ursula Monkton, who seems to have arrived on an ill wind, with the added bonus of her having designs on the boy’s father. Adults overall seem pretty careless. But there is some balance in this universe. Lettie’s family seems beyond time itself, a bright light in the darkness, welcoming, comforting, nurturing. And then there’s the ocean. Looks like a pond to you or me, but it has qualities quite unlike other bodies of water. As in his earlier American Gods, there are things that have been brought to this newer world from the place its residents once occupied. You may not be able to go home again, but what if you could take it with you? (Also a theme in American Gods).

Gaiman says he usually writes for himself. One thing that was different about this book was that he was writing for someone else. His wife, musician Amanda Palmer, was off in Australia making an album. Where you or I might send along daily, or weekly notes of what was going on, Gaiman sent something else:

 "I will tell my wife, by making stuff up, kind of what it was like to be me when I was seven, from the inside of my head, not in the real world, then put it in the actual landscape that I grew up in."

There really had been a boarder who killed himself in the family ride. Like his young hero, Gaiman climbed drainpipes. There really was a farm down the lane that had been recorded in the DomesDay Book. And as with such enterprises he did not have a large frame work constructed. It was “like driving at night through the fog” – he knew “three or five pages ahead what would happen”, but no further.

There is some material here that rankled a bit. The substitute parent trope had been used to good effect in Coraline and manifests in many of the Disney animated classics, evil stepmothers in Cinderella, Snow White and the like. Ditto here. Maybe going to that well one time too many? And is dad really that dim? But there is also a nice diversity of conceptual toys at work. The flapping baddie was fun. The magical ocean and ageless Hemplocks are also very engaging. The nothingness created by the creatures referred to, among other things, as hunger birds, reminded me of Stephen King’s Langoliers, also the Nothing of the Never-Ending Story and the Dark Thing of a Wrinkle in Time. Might the three Hemplocks serve as a sort of feminine Holy Trinity? There is a wormhole that involves an actual…you know…worm, which made me smile for a long time. And any time there is a dip into water, one must ponder things baptismal, rebirth, either literal or spiritual.

Letting go is what so much of growing up is about. It is the very thing that must be done in order to be able to grow, to live one’s own life. But sometimes letting go has the opposite effect, and can place you in peril, particularly when you are only seven and not ready for the consequences.

CONCLUSION: There is a lot in this short book on holding on, and letting go, and the price of both. There is a lot on doing what is right, on personal sacrifice, on permanence and the ephemeral, on remembering and forgetting. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a short novel. But do not let go of the notion that this is a book for adults. The ocean in question may look to be a pond, but do not be deceived. Jump in. The water’s fine, and deep.

NOTE: This review was originally posted on Will's blog. Neil On A Drainpipe and author pic courtesy of Neil Gaiman. The Ocean at the End of the Lane illustration courtesy of Dave McKean and Tor.com.