So what the hell is going on in this book and series? Ostensibly, what’s going on is that a giant quantum experiment has gone wrong and opened up gateways between Otopia (a.k.a. Earth), and the lands of elves and demons and other places. Our heroine is assigned to guard an elf who has become a rock star. Only he’s some sort of fallen elf prince. She doesn’t do a good job, he’s kidnapped, and she must travel in a quest-like experience with companions of dubious loyalties to rescue him.

I did not like the book for several reasons. But the primary reason was that book played with loyalties so badly. Typical experience: capture bad elf, bad elf claims he did bad things only because he’s a double agent and needed people to think he was loyal, accept elf’s word (for the time being). Over and over and over again. At one point an elf companion stabs a bad elf more or less just for talking rather than listen to that claptrap. That was my response. Why it had to be repeated I do not know.

Secondarily, it really felt like Robson was making it up as she went along. New scene, new weird unknown facts about elf-land, no connection to already revealed stuff. Wash, rinse, repeat. It also would have helped if I gave a rip about the elf needing to be saved. He’s neither a sympathetic character, nor are the stakes for his kidnapping revealed until late in the game. Thus, no reason to care whether he’s rescued or not. For the better part of the book, he’s a pawn between two vague groups of elves neither of whose intentions are known.

Kickass cover though.

I’m batting zero for two on Justina Robson books so far.

Title: Keeping It Real
Author: Justina Robson
Cover creator: Larry Rostant
Series: Quantum gravity; 1
Imprint / publisher: Pyr / Perseus
Format: Paperback
Length: 333 p.
Publication date: 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59102-539-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59102-539-9
LC classification: PR6118.O28K44 2007

Fourth of five books from the Feminist SF The Blog list of obscure speculative fiction works that shouldn’t be so obscure.

I thought the book was tough to get in to. A somewhat interesting world called Toussaint where nano-technology underlies everything. But the story of Tan-Tan as a child kind of dragged. And while the Caribbean dialect used both for the characters and narration made things interesting, it slowed down my reading. Perhaps that’s for the best, making me consider what I read rather than gloss over. I felt like my reading didn’t get in to a groove early because I had to constantly stop and decipher the language. That’s more me than it is the book though.

But it didn’t take overlong to pick up. Once I got to the part where (minor spoiler), Tan-Tan’s father Antonio, mayor of some part (or maybe all) of Toussaint kills the man cuckolding his wife, then things got interesting. I question why he decides to jail break and head for New Half Way Tree, the other dimensional parallel world exile colony. If that’s where he’s going to end up anyway, why not let himself be convicted and go there with the supplies the exiles get? Maybe, in addition to being a real bastard (charming, but a complete asswipe), he’s not really that smart. Perhaps.

On New Half Way Tree, I love the combination of first-contact and post-apocalyptic rebuilding society tropes.

Tan-Tan is a great character. Hopkinson mixed parts strength and parts vulnerability and it hangs together quite well. There were a lot of other characters I really liked that only appeared for a short while. I wish they had been worked in to the story more. Quamina, Aislinn, Benta, and Melonhead. Chichibud was pretty good too, though a little too much the alien teacher S.F. archetype.

The confrontation ending the book I thought wasn’t so strong. It just didn’t feel correct that an argument results in one combatant having an epiphany in the middle and giving up. We humans don’t like to do that.

But, despite nits here and there, this was a really strong entertaining story. Not to mention, this is not a white mans world. No that it really has an overt feminist theme. It’s just different, and presented normally. A black girl as heroine. Women in prominent and natural seeming roles. The book passes the Bechdel test as well. But the real draw, the great story.

Title: Midnight Robber
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Cover creator: Don Puckey (design) / Leo Dillon, Diane Dillon (artists)
Imprint / publisher: Aspect / Warner Books
Format: Paperback
Length: 329 p.
Publication date: March 2000
ISBN-10: 0-446-67560-1
LC classification: PR9199.3.H5927 M53 2000

Hoo boy!

Do I ever have mixed feelings about this book. As one review I read put it, there are two main characters in Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky: Titus Quinn, and the Entire.

I’ll start with the Entire. It’s not really a character. The Entire is a parallel universe. Kenyon calls it a radial universe. It’s a large, relative flat place. Not really three dimensional like our universe is. In the center is a large sea, over which floats the Ascendancy, the capital city of the Entire. Around this are various areas called sways, something like countries with areas larger than planets or solar systems. The size of each of these sways is not constant. The physics of the Entire cause the area to vary. Smaller areas spike off each sway. They are bounded by an actual edge to the universe, and at weak points the Entire can see into our universe (the Rose), though not predictably. The Tarig rule, ruthlessly. Other sentient creatures occupy various places. Some are created by the Tarig as copies of humanity. Others have untold origins.

I really like the Entire. I love exploring new worlds, seeking out strange new civilizations. Some of it is kind of clunky and I don’t really think things would work out too well the way Kenyon describes them. The social fabric seems too much like a Jenga tower of blocks. But really I don’t care. The Entire has a fun feel. It’s a new place to explore. It’s different, very different. Most of the creatures found are not humanoid. That’s awesome! Star Trek kind of sucks because everyone they ever ran into looked human with a few prosthetics molded on. There’s some human looking races in the Entire, but they were copied from human. Though at the point I am in the book currently, there’s no real explanation why. In fact, at this point I kind of wish Kenyon would get around to explaining why, since the social fabric is kind of weird and off-putting.

On the other hand, I’ve found nothing redeeming so far about Titus Quinn, amnesiac space ship pilot and the first human to travel to the Entire. Accidentally of course. He appears suddenly on a distant planet with only mad fleeting dreams of his time away. He’s thought to have lost his wife and kid in the space ship accident, but in reality they were all captured by the Tarig rulers in the Entire. Somehow Quinn escaped. Now his employer Minerva has found a way back and Quinn signs up to go, so he can find out what happened to his loved ones and possibly bring them back.

What’s so annoying about Quinn is that he doesn’t make choices. He always picks the most difficult way to do something, and then gets in everyone’s face is they dare question him. He insists on going back alone. Once there, he won’t listen to anyone who allies themselves with him. He continually goes off on his own and arouses suspicion. He threatens and bluffs his way to getting what he wants without offering anything in return. Kenyon bristled in an interview at calling Quinn an anti-hero. I’m not sure she’s read her own book! At a minimum, he’s an anti-hero. I actively hated the guy at the halfway point of the book and switched to a mind set of hoping he’d get eaten by aliens. This is more than hate. There have been characters I thought were evil before. Quinn I hate contemptuously. In wrestling, there are faces and heels. Good guys and bad guys. You want to root for the babyfaces and boo the heels. Except some wrestlers you don’t want to even boo; you just want them off your TV screen because they irritate you. Titus Quinn is one of those characters.

It might be good to give an example. Quinn has traveled to the Ascendancy, the central city, where he needs the approval of a high prefect to travel to a distant sway to retrieve his daughter. Quinn’s heretofore guide Je Anzi was not allowed into the city. But she has told him: But she’d said he was ready. He thought so to. He had to be. Mind you, the human analogues in the Entire, the Chalin, are based on Chinese culture. Everything revolves around proper obeisance to authority. What did we last see Quinn do prior to ascending the chain of government? Bluster Je Anzi into the city at the gate when she was denied entrance. Made a scene, in other words. The man is not constitutionally capable of going along to get along. Ever. And he thinks he is ready to tackle a hostile enemy bureaucracy on his own? What a crock! I’m sure Kenyon will have him finagle his way through somehow, but it will defy everything we know about the character.

I think I have a bigger problem with the writing though. It’s not just Titus Quinn who behaves oddly. Granted, this is a made-up world where everything can be exactly how Kenyon wants it. But in her world, every contact between people is a test of wills. Every contact in the book becomes a struggle between characters to see who comes out on top. Cooperation is only feigned. That’s an awful world, and it isn’t limited to the Entire. All the interactions in the Minerva corporation on Earth follow the same pattern. I’ve spent time in corporate America, and I never saw anything like that. Hell, I’ve spent time in high school, and even there where emotions run high and kids all worry about who is popular, nothing goes to the extreme with which Kenyon imbue s everything.

A deeply unsatisfying book, even if the world-building is imaginative.

Title: Bright of the sky
Author: Kay Kenyon
Cover artist: Stephan Martiniere
Series: The Entire and the Rose; 1
Imprint / publisher: Pyr / Prometheus
Format: Paperback
Length: 451 p.
Publication date: February 2008 (hardcover in April 2007)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59102-601-3
LC classification: PS3561.E5544B75 2007

I didn’t enjoy The Incomplete Enchanter too much. On the other hand, I didn’t hate it either. It was just kind of there. The idea that L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt had was to explore the physics of magic by placing modern day psychologists into fictional magic worlds. There the scientists have adventures as well as extrapolate what the rules are that govern magic in the realms they visit.

Harold Shea is psychologist number one. Not so big on theory, he wants to test Reed Chalmers’ theory of parallel worlds. So he makes himself a sylllogismobile. There’s no actual machine or other vehicle. He just has to repeat syllogisms until he believes them (or something of the sort) to transfer himself. His target is Irish mythology, but he’s not very good and not very prepared and ends up in Norse mythology.

In the second half, constructed from a different short story, both Shea and Chalmers head to Edmund Spenser’s world of The Faerie Queene. This adventure is a little more involved than Shea’s sojourn to Asgard.

The stories by de Camp and Pratt were written in 1940. Since then various authors have written a billion real people travel to magic land stories and I’ve read a few. So I’m a little jaded, even though de Camp and Pratt weren’t really trying to serve the same purpose as most of the later authors. Though part of it is about the fish out of water aspect, the main purpose is just exploring the implications of the rules in each of the two systems. The strangers in the strange land can explore assumptions that the residents would never think to question.

But, like I wrote, it just didn’t interest me in any deep way once I started reading.

Title: The incomplete enchanter
Author: L. Sprague de Camp; Fletcher Pratt
Cover artist: Richard Powers
Imprint / publisher: Pyramid
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 192 p.
Publication date: August 1960 (originally 1941)

I think this installment in the Chronicles of Narnia is my least favorite of the series. The reason? While the entire series is chock full of Christian allegory, for the most part the Narnia stories are parables similar to Aesop’s. But this volume dispenses with allegory almost completely. Before, Lewis’ tales had morals to them. Christian morals, of course. The Last Battle is a retelling the the Christian end times with the name Aslan substituted for God.

Shift is a talking Ape and Puzzle is a talking Donkey who live in the Lantern Waste on the west side of Narnia. One day they happen upon an old lion skin. Shift, being a clever and also duplicitous ape, convinces Puzzle to wear the hide. And then Shift starts manipulating the other animals around by telling them that Aslan has returned. Not that Aslan will talk to them. Shift does the talking. Aslan only makes appearances (in dim light no less). Shift also makes an alliance with a small force of Calormen who provide the muscle to push around anyone who disagrees in return for getting a pretty good deal on slaves and goods.

Tirian is King of Narnia. Investigating reports of Aslan’s return, he sees the Calormenes killing talking Trees. Inflamed, he kills two of them before quickly running off with his Unicorn mount. But since Tirian didn’t warn the men, he feels dishonorable so he returns and surrenders himself to the enemy. Shortly thereafter he realizes that Aslan is a fraud. He prays mightily for Aslan to send people from England to help him, and out of nowhere pop Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole, who were in my next least favorite Narnia book The Silver Chair. They free Rilian, and they all make their escape. Several more times Rilian returns to the camp of the false Aslan, making off with Puzzle in one trip.

Here’s where things just get tedious. Shift and the Calormenes tell a tale of an ass wearing a lion skin. So no one will believe Rilian when he tells the true story that Shift was responsible for the ruse. Meanwhile the Calormenes, mostly unbelievers, spread a fable that their god Tash and Aslan are one and the same. Two different names for the same god. They start calling him Tashlan, though none of them believe in it at all. Some Dwarfs are freed, but rather than siding up with Rilian, they go into business for themselves: The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs. The Dwarfs attack whichever side looks like it’s winning. Meanwhile other forces of Calormen sack Cair Paravel. Narnia looks finished.

And then both Aslan and Tash make appearances.

The not so subtle moral? The end times are near; don’t believe in false gods. In addition, while Lewis uses whimsical language (ahhh the Brits love their whimsy) throughout as he did on the rest of the series, the utter seriousness of the blunt force lumber of a moral and god-talk completely overwhelm any possible fun. It’s Armageddon, Narnia-style.

Title: The last battle
Author: C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis)
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Author: Roger Hane
Series: The chronicles of narnia; 7
Imprint / publisher: Collier / Macmillan
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 184 p.
Publication date: 1970
ISBN-10: 0-02-044210-6
LC classification: PZ8.L48 Las2

I think this installment in the Chronicles of Narnia is the funnest to read of all the books.

It’s a prequel to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. Polly Plummer lives in a row house in London when Digory Kirke comes to live next door. Soon they are exploring the attic and a passageway that lets them drop into the upper floor of any of the houses in their row. And they do, except not into the house they expect. Rather than an empty one several doors down, they accidentally drop into the forbidden study of Digory’s uncle Andrew Ketterley, with whom Digory stays. Rather than let them go, the pathetically maniacal Uncle Andrew forces a ring onto Polly and she promptly disappears. It’s all part of his experiments in magic, and he doesn’t want to experiment on himself. Rather than strand Polly in another world, Digory puts return rings into his pocket and grabs another ring to take him out of the world himself.

The two children find themselves in an in between place. They are in a forest with pools of water spaces around them. Some experimenting and they figure out if they put on a yellow ring and jump into a pool, it takes them to a world. A green ring returns them up from the pool back to the in between place. Rather than return right away, they decide to see what kind of worlds they can explore. The first is eerily quiet. There’s a large deserted palace. Until Digory rings a bell that is. After that a statue-like Queen comes to life. Rather than submit to an uprising of the people, the Queen uttered a magical word that killed everyone and destroyed the world, then put herself into a frozen state until someone released her. That person being Digory. She’s not very nice. The children try to escape, but by grabbing Polly’s hair, the witch manages to tag along to the in between place when the children grab the green rings.

Various and sundry adventures later, the children along with many other tag-alongs show up in the world that will become Narnia as Aslan is bringing it to life.

Unlike a couple other of the Narnia books, this one doesn’t have quite the overbearing moralizing. It’s pretty much a ripoff of the Christian creation story, even to the point of having an apple tree that gives eternal youth and infinite knowledge. No serpent though. It’s fun because it’s got a madcap zaniness that isn’t really present in the other books. All of the series have the fish out of water element, but in this case he really explores the concept. In particular, the Witch Queen of Charn gets to spend some time in Earth as we might have known it at the turn of the century, and Uncle Andrew gets to meet the newly formed world of Narnia. Both with hilarious results. Plus there are other bits of fun like watching a lantern grow in the forest when a metal bar is dropped in the ground. With the magic of a new young world, pretty much anything placed in the ground can grow.

Title: The magician’s nephew
Author: C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis)
Cover artist: Roger Hane
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Series: The chronicles of Narnia ; 6
Imprint / publisher: Collier / Macmillan
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 186 p.
Publication date: 1970
ISBN-10: 0-02-044230-0

I’ve been mentoring students at Chief Sealth High School going on my third year. Every year starts off with what Community For Youth (the sponsoring organization for the mentorship program) calls the launch course. For freshman and first year mentors, it’s a 3½ day retreat on the grounds of a summer camp, away from the city. One of the activities we did that first year was to run a mile every morning. A few of the students were athletes, but most were not. Running a mile was a big deal. Quite a few completed it in 8 to 10 minutes, and some took as long as 17. The catch was, everyone was rated on how much they improved over the 3 mornings. The first two days, the prospective mentors ran with the students, and we were to improve our times as well.

But the last day, the staff pulled us aside. We had a different task the final day. Rather than try to improve our own times, we were to help motivate the students to improve their times. We could do that however we chose. Some ran with students. Other stood along side and shouted encouragement. Being substantially older and substantially more out-of-shape, I could not keep up with any but the worst runners over the course of the mile. So I positioned myself about a quarter mile from the end and ran back with a student, pushing each to do better. Then I would return a way from the end again and complete the same portion of the course with another student. I don’t know if any of them did better with my encouragement and coaching than they would have without it, but several claimed it helped.

This all came to mind as I read C. S. Lewis’ The Horse And His Boy, the fifth book in the Chronicles of Narnia. Our main character is Shasta, a fair-haired fishermen’s apprentice in the land of the dark-skinned Calormenes, south of Narnia. One evening a Calormen noble spending the night offers Shasta’s master a sum to take Shasta as his servant. Visions of riches in his head, the fisherman readily agrees. However, Shasta overhears the conversation and becomes distraight.

Outside in the stables where Shasta is sleeping that night (being summarily kicked out for the night so the noble can sleep indoors), the noble’s horse unexpectedly talks to Shasta. Bree is a Narnian horse, a Talking Horse, unbeknownst to his owner. Of course, he should be a free Narnian horse rather than a war horse for a Calormen. Seeing an opportunity, he and Shasta hatch an escape plan to return to Narnia, where Shasta is likely from as well, seeing as his skin-color doesn’t match that of his Calormen neighbors.

And so they escape during the night, and begin a long journey to Narnia through Tashbaan (the capital of Calormen) and Archenland, the Narnia-friendly country on the border between the Calormen empire and the land of fauns and Talking Beasts to the north. Along the way, they pick up a similarly escaping Hwin (another Talking Horse trapped in the south) and her rider, Aravis. While not Narnian, Aravis does not wish to be married off to an elderly noble, running away to the North herself to escape. In Tashbaan, the travelers learn of a planned Calormen invasion of Narnia, and their journey becomes doubly important as they must warn their desired home of the danger. Will they beat the invading force to the fortresses of Archenland and Narnia?

The God-analogue in Narnia, the lion Aslan, makes his expected appearance in this tale. Several times in fact. At several points, Shasta and his companions hear the lion’s roar behind them. Not knowing the legend of Aslan, nor even if they had would they think to connect it with their pursuer, they simply believe a wild beast has given chase and will devour them if they falter.

Anyway, I thought of the morning run in the launch course as I read this book.

Title: The horse and his boy
Author: C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis)
Cover artist: Roger Hane
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Series: The chronicles of Narnia ; 5
Imprint / publisher: Collier / Macmillan
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 217 p.
Publication date: 1970
ISBN-10: 0-02-044200-9

When I think about the Chronicles of Narnia, I think mostly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, or possibly Prince Caspian. I don’t remember the later books as well as the earlier ones. And it’s just as well, because on reading this I recall how dreadfully boring The Silver Chair is.

The story is simple. Eustace Scrubb, he of the unfortunate name from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Jill Pole are the picked on kids at The Experimental School in England. Rushing through the brush to escape their tormentors, they step through a door and into the world of Narnia. Unlike the previous stories where the transplantees must figure out what their purpose in Narnia is, in The Silver Chair they drop immediately into Aslan’s end of the world. There Aslan gives the two children a quest, then transports them on his breath to Narnia. Their quest is to rescue Prince Rilian, the heir to King Caspian’s throne. He disappeared a decade earlier while seeking to avenge the death of his mother by offing the serpent that killer her. Numerous knights sent in search of him have also disappeared.

The obviousness of everything in The Silver Chair is annoying. First, the quest is given at the beginning and is boring: search for the prince, have some adventures, bring him back. The moral is also pushed so much harder than in previous books. Aslan gives the children four Signs (or commands). The children repeatedly forget them and do not follow them when they should. Bad things happen as a result. Follow the directions of authority, particularly those of Jesus, or pay the consequences!

Title: The silver chair
Author: C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis)
Cover artist: Roger Hane
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Series: The chronicles of Narnia ; 4
Imprint / publisher: Collier / Macmillan
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 217 p.
Publication date: 1970
ISBN-10: 0-02-044250-5
LC classification: PZ7.L58474 Si 2005

The blurb on the front of Top Dog comes from the San Francisco Chronicle and reads: If Kafka and Tolkien shared an office on Wall Street, this is the novel they might have written. My reading of the book, however, makes me think instead that it’s a cross between The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Lord Foul’s Bane. The hero, W. B. Bogey Ingersol, a Wall Street raider awakes in the body of a dog in a fantasy world. The world has been at peace for generations, long enough for the fair residents of the idyllic countryside to forget the threat of Mogwert. But the animals haven’t forgotten and already sense that Mogwert is set to return. Bogey doesn’t exactly have a well-developed conscience. While he likes the good people of Gowyith much better, he’s willing to throw in with Mogwert if he thinks they will win and will return him to the reality he knows. Of course, neither side is willing to promise him anything before the final battle. Who will Bogey ultimately side with, and will he side with them for the right reasons?

This is, I believe, the third time I’ve read the book. However, my memory of it was that it was quite a good book. But my re-reading places it further down in the pretty decent category, mostly because of the over-done and over-clich&ecute; amoral person much choose between good and evil theme. The book works best when it stays breezy and slightly humorous, and focuses on the fish out of water story of Bogey in dog form. It’s pretty easy reading, and if you can ignore the very explicit Christian-mythos-like antagonists, you’ll enjoy the book.

Title: Top dog
Author: Jerry Jay Carroll
Imprint / publisher: Ace Books / Penguin Putnam
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 330 p.
Publication date: 1998
ISBN-10: 0-441-00513-6
Subject: Dogs — Fiction
LC classification: PS3553.A7642 T66 1996

I was all ready to purchase this book the day it came out. But I was lucky enough to come upon an Advance Reading Copy this past week, so I didn’t need to. China Miéville is my favorite author, but even with that proviso, I’ve been awaiting this book from more than several recent works of his. I liked Iron Council but it took me a long time to read it and in the end I didn’t like it as much as I liked The Scar or Perdido Street Station. I own Looking for Jake, but haven’t cracked it yet. Too much other stuff to read. But Un Lun Dun intrigued me even without knowing the outline. All I knew was that it was young adult and not set in Bas-Lag. I think some of the best books ever were targeted at the young adult market, though there is a lot of dreck in that section of the book store.

The back of my reader’s edition says that the book is part Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, part The Phantom Tollbooth. My recollection of both of those books is faint, but I’d have to say it leans more towards Norton Juster’s book than Lewis Carroll’s.

Deeba and Zanna are teenage (?) Londoners. Strange things are afoot. Animals look at Zanna weirdly. Clouds as well. One day the two of them follow a crawling umbrella into some sort of underground bunker, where Zanna turns a wheel and London disappears. They are in UnLondon (Un Lun Dun), a twisted city retaining some of London’s character and built on it’s detritus. Or moil as the residents call it. Mildly Obsolete In London. The leftovers of London find their way to UnLondon: the wash that blows off the line, the smog, the garbage, etc. Ghosts inhabit UnLondon. So do weird beings such as the pincushion head tailor, and the school of fish inhabiting a diving suit, and a bird controlling a body with a birdcage for a head.

See, Zanna is the Schwazzy. UnLondon is at war. Smog is taking over the city. When it gets thick enough it can think and act. The Propheseers, the closest thing to UnLondon’s rulers and protectors (no one really runs UnLondon entirely), have a talking book of prophecy that predicts a girl from London will save UnLondon in the war. Zanna is their prophesied savior. The book describes her. It describes her winning her first fight with the smog. It tells how she accomplishes seven Herculean tasks culminating in finding the UnGun, which will be used to save UnLondon.

Only things don’t go quite as planned. In her first encounter, Zanna is pretty much useless and UnLondoners Unstible and Brokkenbroll hatch their own plan. Brokkenbroll commands unbrellas, living broken unbrellas. Unstible creates a chemical that makes the unbrellas bulletproof. The unbrellas fight off an attack of the smog by fanning it away and protecting UnLonders from smog-created bullet-like pellets. Everyone agrees to arm the entire city with unbrellas, so everything seems fine after all, despite a blown prophesy. Deeba and Zanna go back to London, though Zanna no longer remembers UnLondon.

But Deeba cannot forget, and some things worry her. She investigates further, and realizes there’s even more danger to UnLondon. So she sets out to return to warn everyone.

As noted in an interview, Miéville has a bit of an axe to grind. Much of fantasy revolves around fate, prophesy, and elite do-gooders who save the world. Fantasy is often about kings, queens, and princesses who are born to rule, and are destined to accomplish great things. What is there for regular people to identify with?

Miéville very consciously made the prophecy in Un Lun Dun nearly worthless. Not completely worthless, but nearly worthless. Zanna may be the Schwazzy, but she still was unable to fight effectively. Deeba, on the other hand, the sidekick, she’s the one who shows loyalty to her friend, as well as the caring to return to UnLondon. She doesn’t set out to be the Schwazzy, but she does attempt to help. She tries to pick and choose the important parts of the prophesy. Life is what she makes it; she doesn’t kowtow to what she’s supposed to do.

I have no clue really how to evaluate the book as young adult. The reading is definitely tougher than Harry Potter, so it may not appeal to as many young people. And since Miéville makes a point to break some taboos of young adult novels, it may not be particularly popular. People often want the predictable. I think it’s a more interesting book though.

I don’t know if the published version of the book has them, or if the U.K. edition does, but Miéville has some great illustrations up on the official Un Lun Dun web site. The A.R.C. I read only has two small illustrations which are used in the chapter heads. But I’d definitely suggest looking at those drawings after reading the book, not before. Better for the imagination that way.

Title: Un Lun Dun
Author: China Miéville
Imprint / publisher: Del Rey / Random House
Publication Date: February 2007
Format: Advance Reader Copy
Length: 425 p.
ISBN-10: 0-345-49516-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-49516-7