Book Review: A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

Another go around at cosy, witchy romance, but this one doesn't quite hit the mark.

Back in 2022, I read, enjoyed and reviewed Sangu Mandanna’s The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. It was cosy and heartwarming, but with just enough depth to keep it the right side of the line of schmaltz, and with a well-developed cast of characters and some genuinely excellent chemistry between the main character and love interest, as well as a decent character arc for that MC outside of just her romance. It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it was intensely enjoyable fluff and just the right sort of thing for a certain sort of mood.

Thus, when another book in a similar vein was announced, I was delighted enough to pre-order immediately. Publishing is publishing and delays are delays, but A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping came out this July, and I immediately devoured it seeking the same sort of comforting warmth I got from her previous novel.

And I did get that. And that might, slightly, be the problem.

While the details of the plots differ, the two books share a hell of a lot in common, especially in their characters, themes and vibes. Both feature love interests from the UK but not England who seem spiky and unwelcoming to the MC at first but upon further investigation have soft, mushy centres, and are devoted to one or several little girls who aren’t their daughter(s) but whom they care about fiercely nonetheless. They are also very bookish and knowledgeable, and very particular about their books. And hot. But it’s a romance novel so that goes without saying. They are also both slightly outsiders in some way. The main character is likewise slightly an outsider (because racial background, class, upbringing) and has her hangups, especially about her self-worth, but having persevered through many trials and loneliness has a core of determination. Magic sits in the hands of a small and conservative group whose beliefs/strictures the main character chafes against. A lot of people’s biological parents are absolutely terrible. Or dead. Or both. The plot predominantly takes place in a household that offers a supportive sanctuary away from the hardships imposed by the world and those conservative magic users, and which is, at some point, under threat from an external force. The main character ends up in a quasi-family, quasi-teacher role to a younger person with magic that she is not fully prepared for.

There’s probably more that I’m missing, but already, that feels like a pretty chunky overlap. For some of it, I’m tempted to assume it’s just how the author do - especially for the love interest. How many Guy Gavriel Kay novels have I read that contain That One Woman, after all? Many authors do it. And likewise, many authors have their pet themes and ideas that resolve again and again in their work. But this… feels just a little too close.

And even then, maybe I would have rolled with it, except… it’s just not quite as good at nearly all of it as The Very Secret Society is. It’s not terrible! But when you have something that occupies quite so much of so very similar a space, it’s really hard not to feel let down when the second one just doesn’t quite tick those boxes as well as the first. And especially so, when some of those boxes are the romance and the found family, the two key things that these books need to deliver on to be what they so clearly set out to be.

I’ll tackle the found family first. This is a book with a small cast of misfits who live together in the titular inn, because its magic draws them in as someone whom the inn and its owners can help in some way. Some of them, though they don’t get a tonne of attention, feel like they have a safely closed arc (if a relatively short one), like the cousin from Iceland whom the main character, Sera, coaches through a little moment of self-doubt and upset about his relationship with his family. He has his Moment. But there are two characters in that cast whose threads feel, to me, as though they are left hanging. The first is Nicholas, a slightly odd young man who works as a knight reenactor at a local medieval fair and who… certainly seems like he’s in love with the main character. And while he gets his Emotional MomentTM, it is handled mostly off-screen with a brief conversational acknowledgment, and the way he behaves towards the MC is never really addressed. It just sort of… sits there. More significant however is a character we meet right at the very start, whose “help” causes the initial conflict of the book in the prologue, and who continues to play a role of very mixed help and problem-causing right the way through to the end. Her name is Clemmie, and she’s trapped in the body of a fox. And she is a Problem.

Upon finishing the book, it seemed pretty clear to me what her arc was shaped to be, as a mischievous and self-serving person who comes to see the value and love available in the sanctuary of the inn. And some of the beats of it are there. Certainly the ending is trying to have that arc as if it’s been completed. But there aren’t enough moments throughout the story to fully support that arc and make her actions at the narrative climax feel plausible. It just felt a little flat. And there are moments throughout that have this quality - they conform to the overall shape of the narrative but just don’t quite feel fleshed out enough for it to work emotionally or intuitively.

Which brings me to Luke, the love interest, who has exactly the same problem, but far more prominently because well… he’s the love interest in a romance. He’s load-bearing.

One of the great things about The Very Secret Society (look, it’s too long of a title to type out every time and you know what I mean) is that the beginning and end points of the romance felt totally believable, and the middle spent a lot of words getting us from A to B, ramping the chemistry up over scene after scene and making it impossible not to buy. The two characters are very different from one another, and don’t really like each other, but I totally buy how they ended up there, because I have seen it happen. And that’s what we don’t get in A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping. We skip a lot of the necessary middle work, relying a little on flashback and implied previous interaction, and mostly on the reader knowing what shape of story this is and just being willing to go along with it. The ingredients are absolutely there, but they have, to stretch a metaphor, only been given the briefest of stirs. I’d have preferred she used the blender.

But if all that is missing, in a book almost exactly the length of her previous work, what’s there in its place?

Well, a couple of things. For a start, A Witch’s Guide is much more peopled than The Very Secret Society. We get to see more of an actual world - an England - in which this story is taking place, and that England is both a great strength and a minor weakness of Mandanna’s writing. On the one hand, she has a great skill for writing an obviously diverse world that absolutely feels like the world I know in reality - it is just casually peopled by a wide range of people, noticeably but unobtrusively because why would it be obtrusive? That’s just how the world is. And if this book had been set in a city, I would never have given it another thought. But it’s not. It’s set in the rural northwest, and includes some places I was quite familiar with growing up, and which, in my experience, were rather less diverse and wholly less accommodating of difference than, for instance, I have found London to be. And while this is a book that makes a point of the racial, ableist and classist tensions of modern England - they form, in many ways, the core of the narrative conflict - those tensions are predominantly centred Elsewhere, in the magical Guild that exists off in Northumberland, with only a brief nod to racism in the local area (a pub the MC no longer frequents). My experience of the northwest is hardly universal, and I cannot speak for every single village and magical B&B in the area, but in a book where a lot of the location and culture work feels so true, this felt oddly out of place to me.

There is also a brief moment when we are first introduced to characters in that stuffy, old-fashioned magical guild where their snobbery and Englishness has the dial turned to 11 and I likewise felt it just that little… off. But we get a snippet of one of them that hints to that parodic Englishness being a performance, just a little nod, and while that thread isn’t really developed from there, it sows enough discord into the characterisation that I took it much more in stride. This is something being done with purpose. Which makes me assume the other off note is purposeful too, even if I can’t quite grasp it in the moment.

Because the thing is, Sangu Mandanna is excellent at character writing. Even when other elements are awry, she crafts instantly graspable, distinctive characters. When I met each one in this book I instantly got who I was dealing with, and wanted to spend time with them. I wanted to see how they would develop and interact, and the plot was of somewhat secondary significance, a vector through which to reach more interesting character dynamics. That’s still true here, but it feels a little like she’s sacrificed full commitment to it in her core cast to give us a slightly wider supporting one, and it’s not a bargain I think, ultimately, is worthwhile. I’d have rather had a longer novel, or one with fewer characters, but where the dedication to that core cast gave me a fully satisfying set of scenes and interactions, and where the tension was palpable, the development really sold. But that’s not what we’ve quite got here. It’s most of the way there, but it’s missing the spark it really needs, and that I know she has because I’ve seen it before in her work, and the elements needed were all right here in this book, but they just never quite resolved.

It’s still a fun read. She’s still really good at a lot of the key elements needed for this kind of cosy, heartwarming fantasy romance. The message of the core plot is a schmaltzy one, but with its heart absolutely in the right place, and the two main characters feel well-crafted and suited to one another. It’s a romance I really want to believe. But it’s not quite there. Close - so very close - but just not quite at the mark. I would still recommend it as a fun read. I still had fun. But I can’t help but compare it to The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, because that, truly, did have the spark.

--

The Math

Highlights:

• A realistically peopled England
• Places that feel absolutely real
• Genuine warmth

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10

Reference: Sangu Mandanna, A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping, [Hodderscape, 2025].

POSTED BY: Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroformtea.bsky.social

Film Review: Wicked, Part 1

Real world social commentary wrapped in memorable show tunes and a classic, fantastical setting.

First came L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the story of Dorothy, a girl who gets blown from Kansas by a cyclone into the fantasy world of Oz. The book was made into the classic film, the Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. In Oz, Dorothy meets the beautiful witch Glinda who sends her to Wizard of Oz so that he can get her back to Kansas. In her quest to get home, she defeats the wicked witch of the West and forms friendships with three allies, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. However [spoiler alert] the wizard turns out to be a fraud with no magical powers and in an ironic twist, her companions who consider themselves to be defective and lacking, all turn out to be strong and capable despite their external deficits.

After The Wizard of Oz, came various musical versions of the story including, The Wiz, a primarily Black cast retelling of the story featuring R&B songs like When I Think of Home and Ease on Down the Road. The hit film version of The Wiz starred Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, and other superstars. Later came the Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. This time the story of Oz is told from the point of view of the story’s original villain, Elphaba. In this version, Elphaba is mistreated, well-meaning, exploited, framed, and ultimately understandably angry. She also has a fraught friendship with Glinda the good witch in the original version of the story.  The novel inspired the musical, Wicked, featuring a tragic hero, tortured friendships, and iconic songs that never quite leave your mind. The Tony winning Broadway musical is the inspiration for the 2024 feature film musical starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, respectively. After more than a century into existence, Oz has been through many interpretations.

What contemporary audiences often want is a complex character study. People are seldom just bad or good. They are the products of their experiences and they act based on the reality of their world view and their lived experiences. Wicked, Part 1, tells us the story of a child, Elphaba, who is unloved because of her skin color (green) and feared because of her strength (magic). Despite this she grows to be resilient with a mix of compassion and cynicism. While escorting her younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) to the wizard school, Shiz University, Elphaba’s magic skills catch the eye of a professor (Michelle Yeoh), so Elphaba also ends up enrolling in Shiz to develop her powers in the hopes of one day meeting the magical Wizard, the powerful leader of the land who can grant any wish. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is stuck rooming with the self-absorbed and intensely popular, Glinda (Ariana Grande) who is the opposite of Elphaba’s reticent, outcast vibe. The two initially dislike each other but over time they become friends after each offers the other an unexpected act of kindness. The arrival of the handsome and charismatic prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) creates a love triangle with Glinda and Elphaba. Meanwhile Elphaba’s younger sister Nessarose is attracted to the Munchin student Boq (Ethan Slater) who is not-so-secretly in love with Glinda. But the main external conflict is the oppression and racism against the talking animals who have been part of society for ages. Elphaba discovers a plot to wrongfully imprison them, cut them off from their homes and employment, and take away their ability to speak. Her determination to speak out against the injustice puts her in conflict with those in power and strains her friendship with Glinda. The film is only part one of the musical so it ends with much of the conflict unresolved. However, the story ends on an inspiring note as Elphaba and Glinda struggle with their respective choices.

If you are familiar with the musical, none of this is new material. But, while the film manages to stay true to the stage show, it also brings startlingly sharp observations of current issues of racism, social oppression, and political manipulation. When Elphaba is stared at because she is green, Glinda expresses hope that they can solve her skin color problem. Elphaba irritatedly rebuffs the suggestion and a man in Glinda’s entourage defensively declares that “I don’t see color.” The fact that Elphaba is played by a Black actress, particularly makes the message resonate.

As the story progresses, Elphaba and Glinda uncover political intrigue involving the innocent talking animals as pawns. Later the talking goat history professor, Dr. Dillamond (voiced by Peter Dinklage) warns that “you ignore the past at your own peril.” When you see Wicked, you can easily talk for hours about the current societal references in the story. The film has sharp content and excellent acting from Cynthia Erivo as the determined Elphaba and Ariana Grande as the good-hearted, but hesitant to act, Glinda.

In addition to the unexpectedly thoughtful and timely plot, Wicked delivers exactly what audiences want in a musical: stunning sets, gorgeous dance numbers (and costumes), and iconic songs (Popular, One Short Day, and Defying Gravity) that will make you want to play the soundtrack the entire way home from the theater. Cynthia Erivo is perfect as Elphaba, playing the character in an understated but bitingly cynical way. Ariana Grande is adorable as an onscreen embodiment of Barbie from Barbie and Elle from Legally Blonde, as she moves from confident and self-absorbed to compassionate, conflicted, and ultimately overwhelmed. The film also has nods to Wednesday and Enid from the Netflix series Wednesday. The only real problem with this film is that it is Wicked, Part 1, which means that we only get through the first half of the story in this rendition. However, it is so well done and ends on such a high note (literally and figuratively) that this story of the rise of an unlikely hero ultimately feels satisfying.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights:

• Sharp social commentary
• Stunning sets and performances
• Poignant, sing-a-long fun

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction-writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Film Review: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched

A sprawling, exhaustive (and exhausting?) documentary about folk horror films

 

This three-plus hour documentary was not what I was expecting. I went into the 2021 documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror expecting something along the lines of a modern-day Haxan, the Danish/Swedish silent 1922 documentary/dramatization discussing the roots of local legends surrounding witches and witchcraft, dating back to the Middle Ages.

Instead, what I got was a survey of some nearly 200 films from (one of my favorites) Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973) all the way through contemporary films like Ari Aster's Midsommar (2019). How they managed to license clips from so many films, from so many countries, to visually tell the story of folk horror films in this documentary is a wonder. I say in all seriousness, hats off to the distributor's legal team. Without the absolute waterfall of clips included in this documentary, the proceedings would be extremely dry and I don't think the film would offer the viewer anything approaching the same level of engagement.  

Written and directed by Kier-La Janisse, the film begins with the "Big Three" of folk horror, Witchfinder General, Satan's Claw, and The Wicker Man. The film touches on the actual events that inspired the first two films -- a depraved religious zealot who exploited the societal breakdown of a civil war in England to amass power to himself and torture people he deemed "witches," and a true-crime case of a child who committed murder and was rumored to be involved in demonic cult, respectively. The popular conception of folk horror films begins with these, and in the minds of most casual viewers familiar with the subgenre, hews mostly to stories set in the British Isles, and usually involving some type of ancient pagan practice persisting unnoticed into the modern day.

But over the next three hours, Wilderness Dark and Days Bewitched then widens the lens beyond the British Isles, and I think this is the real mission of the documentary. It explores films either produced in or set in England, the United States broadly -- its previous colonial incarnation and various Native cultures, New England, and the American South -- Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Japan, the Philippines, and within Nazi Germany's occult fascination (while gesturing at by not including the Indiana Jones films explicitly). 

The central conversation of folk horror is one between the present and the past. One aspect is that change itself is frightening, both because of the unknown looming on the horizon, but also because of what has been forgotten from the past. There may be traps set, there may be poisons latent in the land itself, in the primordial soup from which modern culture evolved that lie in wait or, worse yet, bear us ill will. The horror comes from our inability to resist these things because we are ignorant of their possibility. This tension exists in every culture, it seems, and so the film makes a compelling argument that folk horror is a global phenomenon.

The film does stumble, however. In some ways, it falls beneath its own weight. Even at 3+ hours, it feels like it merely scratches the surface, and films are mentioned in a clause of a sentence and then gone before much can be done to link them to a larger thought. The documentary may have benefited from a closer look at fewer films in order to tell a more focused story. That lack of focus manifests in another quirk of the film, as well -- the writer/director is one of the interviewees featured throughout, and she is not identified onscreen as the filmmaker. I found myself wondering at the creative choices that led to the author being presented as one of many, rather than a guiding presence. I think the film may have benefited from a stronger authorial voice, rather than the presentation it ultimately went with. 

The breadth of films included also, I think, weakens the central argument of the movie. Here is a sampling of just some of the movies I've seen personally that were excerpted in this documentary: Witchfinder General, The Wicker Man, Burn Witch Burn, Night of the Demon, Dunwich Horror, Lair of the White Worm, Suspiria, The Witch, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Messiah of Evil, The Lottery, Deliverance, The Shining, Poltergeist, I Walked with a Zombie, Serpent and the Rainbow, Ganja & Hess, Candyman, Hour of the Wolf, Midsommar, Black Sabbath. At a certain point, it starts to feel like if everything is folk horror, nothing is folk horror.

The overall impression is of a film that is both too much and not enough, one that introduces compelling ideas but leaves them largely unexplored. Here is a nice YouTube examination of some of the specific areas in which it does that. That said, the steady stream of titles and concepts does propel the documentary, and I found myself not regretting, or even really noticing, the long running time, which I spread out over two evenings.

--

The Math

Highlights: If you like folk horror, or the even-more-specific category of daylight horror, this doc is a revelation of film recommendations; a specific focus on widening the lens to be more inclusive and thoughtful about traditions that are often excluded in film discussions

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Posted by Vance K—resident cult film reviewer and co-founder of nerds of a feather, flock together

Recap: The Acolyte Episode 3 — Destiny

In this episode, we get the tragic backstory of Osha and Mae, as well as a look at brand-new Force witches and the complicated nature of Jedi youngling recruiting.

After two episodes of characters reckoning with the past, we finally get a chance to view the origin story of all the trauma. Osha and Mae are playing outside the bounds of their settlement on Brendok, and casually using the Force — which we learn they call "the Thread" — to play. 

Shortly a stern Zabrak woman named Mother Koril comes to claim them home. A quick aside about Zabraks: Darth Maul is perhaps the most famous one, and the species is known for their intense face markings and head horns. 

And look, I know this woman obviously cares for these kids, but she is just SO damn scary looking from a physical perspective. Zabraks unfortunately look caricatured devils in our culture. It's wild to think that a child would run up to one for comfort after skinning their knee or falling off their bike. OK, rant over.

Behind a tree, like the classic meme of Anthony Adams rubbing his hands together, is a young Master Sol watching the girls. So, the Jedi are on this planet scoping out...something.  

Intro the Coven

Back at the settlement, we get introduced to an isolated society of all women, sort of a Star Wars Themiskyra, it seems, with members performing tasks and chores in a bustling environment. 

Then, we get to meet one of my favorite new Star Wars characters to come along in a long time — Mother Aniseya. Jodie-Turner Smith really knocks it out of the park with her performance, showcasing strength, intelligence, and incredible allure as the leader of this secret coven of witches. 

Star Wars, of course, is no stranger to powerful and isolated force witches (Mother Talzin and her Dathomiri Nightsisters), but it's fun to get a different version that may or may not be connected.

Back safely inside the fortress, Koril explains to Aniseya that Osha ventured outside again, and that there were no signs of the visiting Jedi (wrong). There's a brief moment of intimacy here between the two women — are they lovers? It's unclear.  Aniseya tries to assuage Koril's fear of discovery, but Koril restates an important fact: the twins aren't normal children. It appears that there's something special about them beyond just being witches. 

Special children — this is a theme that goes back to The Phantom Menace, and it's not the only tieback we'll see in this episode.

A Force by Any Other Name

"All living things are connected by the same thread," Mother Aniseya promulgates in the next scene. "A thread woven through all of existence." She states that some call this energy, the Force, but for her coven, it's not a power to be wielded as a weapon. For them, it's more about connection with other living things. 

This is lovely, and honestly it's not far from the more mystical aspects of the Force that we learned from Yoda. "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."

Sure, the Jedi try not to use the Force for attacking, but they're still warriors who often must kill enemies using it. They're space cops, after all. 

The twins this evening will be attending an event called the Ascension, which appears to be a sort of initiation ceremony for their powers. Osha in particular is apprehensive about the event, as she's not sure that she actually wants to become a witch. Mae, on the other hand, wants nothing more, and consistently pressures her sister to aspire to the same fate.

"The galaxy is not a place that welcomes women like us. Witches who have the abilities we do," Mother Aniseya tells them. Of all the ways that the Star Wars Universe is different from ours, it appears that this fear of powerful women still holds true. This adds an absolutely fascinating element to the world-building that I really really liked.  

We learn that the coven was exiled and on the brink of extinction — but that they were blessed with the gift of life (in the form of the twins). This explains why there are only two children in the camp of adult women, and why they're so lovingly cared for by the community. 

Mandatory Jedi Conscription

At the Ascension ceremony for the girls, four Jedi barge and interrupt, claiming that only their order are allowed to train children who are Force-sensitive. We've known about younglings since the prequel films, but I've never really stopped to think about how these kids are identified and obtained. 

I think I always presumed that parents willingly and lovingly volunteered their kids for this training (kind of like how talented soccer kids in Europe get identified early and put on specific paths). Never in my wildest dreams did I think that the Jedi had the power to prevent others from training Force-sensitive youth.

Adding this to the canon adds another layer of complexity to the lore of the Jedi that also began with the prequels. In the O.T., the Jedi, all but extinct, are almost deified as the perfect warrior saints of a bygone era. 

In the prequels, we learn that they were in fact not perfect, and that they were headstrong, willfully ignorant at times, and occasionally problematic. 

A Power Some Consider to Be Unnatural

When the Jedi demand to know where the twins came from, Mother Aniseya states that "they have no father." Flashback to Shmi saying the same thing to Qui-Gon Jinn when he inquired about Anakin's lineage. 

This simple statement presents a whole host of new questions for the episode and Star Wars at large. Here's just a few I have:

• Are the twins some sort of Chosen Ones?
• Will Darth Plagueis eventually learn this power from them?
• Does this kind of thing (immaculate conception) happen a lot in the Star Wars universe?
• Is this implication that the twins are chosen obviate Anakin's chosen-ness?

We learn that Mother Koril carried the twins, but Aniseya admits to "creating them." Curious, indeed.

An Unexpected Tragedy

Mother Aniseya agrees to send her down for testing the next, ostensibly as a ruse as they plan to attack them. But we learn that Osha desperately wants to become a Jedi — before they even arrive, she's been sketching the Jedi insignia in her notebook, perhaps a nod to her incipient prophetic Force abilities.

With the Jedi, she gets a blood test (man, it's been a long time since anyone's talked about midichlorians, but I kinda dig it. It's like physical proof someone has Jedi powers). She attempts to purposefully fail the guessing test, but they see right through the ruse. It's clear she's drawn to another destiny than that of her sister, much to Mae's anger. 

When Osha returns home, Mae is distraught and locks her in her room so she can't leave with the Jedi. She starts a fire carelessly, and it eventually consumes the fortress. 

She is rescued by Master Sol, and though the exact details aren't shown, all of the witches are dead as they escape through the flames. Did the witches attack the Jedi or vice versa? Signs seem to point to the former, considering the guilt that Torbin felt when he chose to die by suicide.

Osha witnesses Mae seemingly die as she falls into the fire during the evacuation, a tragedy that will split the twins apart for the next 16 years. As we learned in the first two episodes, she doesn't. I imagine in the next few episodes we'll learn Mae's fate, as well as that of the mysterious dark figure who trained her. 

--

The Math

Baseline score: 8

Bonuses: Jodie Turner-Smith as Mother Aniseya, the leader of a coven of powerful Force witches, absolutely knocks it out of the park; connecting this coven to Darth Plagueis the Wise is mind-blowing

Proto Gonk droid count: None sadly 

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, new NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, Vidalia onions, and growing corn and giving them pun names like Anacorn Skywalker. 

Microreview: The Briar Book of the Dead, by A. G. Slatter

 Witches, deadly families, and dead bodies in ample profusion 

 A. G. Slatter’s books tend to run to type: supremely confident female characters wielding power of one sort or another in a richly realized world while contending with deeply deeply unhealthy family dynamics. Oh, and corpses. So many corpses. Slatter has never met a plot point that she doesn’t resolve by chucking a corpse in it. And, frankly, I am here for it.

The Briar Book of the Dead is the third full-length novel set in Slatter’s world first introduced in her collection of Sourdough stories. Each novel stands alone, exploring various elements of the magical and the mundane of these worlds, while incorporating certain common elements. This one focuses on the small, remote town of Silverton, population 2000, which has spent generations under the rule of the Briar witches. Silverton has prospered; the priests (god-hounds, a delightful term) are kept at bay, and all is well. Except that a generation of Briar witches has been lost to plague and madness, and the new generation finds that it is not straightforward to step into their forbears' shoes. In part that may be because the incoming steward, Ellie Briar, is not, herself a witch. For some reason or other, the Briar magic has passed her by, and she must carry out her responsibilities with no other power than mundane competence. Or perhaps it is that Ellie's cousin Audra, the new Briar Witch, is too reliant on her magic and neglectful of her mundane dutues. Or perhaps it is that there is a string of disappearances and sudden deaths which, coming hard on the heels of the sudden demise of the previous Briar Witch, looks much too suspicious to be a coincidence. And then the ghosts are returning, for the first time in 300 years.

 Like much of Slatter’s work, the female characters in this book are drawing on a rich, dark history to inform their actions. The history of the Briar witches is conveyed through family tales which are also folktales. There was, and there was not is a formula that introduces the tale of a young woman who wore a red dress and danced at her husband’s funeral; of a woman who makes a deal with Lady Death for the life of her child; of the three founders of Silverton who were once maybe bears. 

 These are not all happy stories. Many are grim and sad, and resonate with unfolding events in Silverton that are tied, in one way or another, to the accession of the newest generation of Briars. The dead Briars are as vital to the story as the current living ones--in memory; in legacy; or (because remember, ghosts) in direct revenance. Next to Ellie and her cousins Audra, Nia, and Eira, we learn about their mothers and ancestors: Gilly, Hebe, Maud, and others. Generations and generations of Briar witches, whose rule has become the defining feature of Silverton, play vital roles in this story.

 Beyond the family links between the Briar witches past and present, the events in these stories mirror current events in ways that go beyond metaphorical narrative devices. They can be quite literal. The original, ancestral Briar Witch took control of Silverton after a deadly plague left it floundering, paralleling the current Briar Witches, whose elders were almost all killed in a second plague some years before the start of the book. This is the most direct parallel, but it is not the only one, and it is not the only one that results in a body count.

Speaking of body counts: I mentioned it earlier, but it bears repeating. The death toll in this book is staggering. There are so many dead bodies. There are dead babies, dead grandmothers, dead mothers, dead cousins, dead aunts, dead god-hounds, dead townspeople, dead lovers. Some come back as ghosts; some as less savoury haunts; and all must be sent on their way. Vast swathes of the residents of Silverton fall to Slatter’s merciless pen, until I found myself flipping back to check the  population again, wondering if the town could absorb this degree of depopulation.

I don’t want to come across as bloodthirsty, but I must say that I find Slatter’s willingness to bump off characters wherever the plot needs a little juicing up to be quite refreshing.  Actions have consequences, in her world. If two people are at odds in a Slatter book, odds are one of them is going to end up dead. If you find yourself saying about someone, ‘sounds fishy—don’t trust her!’ in a Slatter book, chances are the fishy one has blood on her hands. If you find yourself thinking, ‘he seems nice!’, then you’re in for a disillusionment, because he’s got blood on his hands too. There are a lot of bloody hands. It works for me.

Now, that being said, I’m not fully sure that the plot of this book is as successful as other Slatter stories. The world; the respect given to logistical competence; the character dynamics of dysfunctional families—all the more deadly when those families have both temporal and magical power---all of these are terrific. But I still found myself getting a little bit restless as the book progressed. I didn't quite have a sense of what the plot actually was. There are hints at mysteries but they're never foregrounded enough to drive the plot; and indeed I had guessed who was behind the deaths and disappearances early enough that the lack of development made me feel as if things were dragging. Possibly Slatter felt this too; possibly that’s why there were so many corpses. But even their ready profusion couldn’t quite fix the pacing problems in this otherwise vibey, moody, effective tale.

--

Highlights

Nerd coefficient: 7/10: an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws

Highlights:

• Witches
  
• Unhealthy family dynamics
  
• Corpses. So many corpses
• Ghosts
  

CLARA COHEN lives in Scotland in a creaky old building with pipes for gas lighting still lurking under her floorboards. She is an experimental linguist by profession, and calligrapher and Islamic geometric artist by vocation. During figure skating season she does blather on a bit about figure skating. She is on Mastodon at wandering.shop/@ergative.

References:

Slatter, A.G. The Briar Book of the Dead [Titan Books 2024]

Review: The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson

The sequel to HMRC unfortunately lacks the punch of its predecessor, but promises good things for what follows next.

It was always going to be difficult, coming after Her Majesty's Royal Coven. Not just because it was a pretty solid book (although it was), but because of how it ended things - it left us in a position with no Niamh as a viewpoint character, and, at least for me, she was one of the most useful viewpoints we had. Maybe not the best, maybe not the most sympathetic, but the most useful - she was a voice of insight into what the eponymous HMRC itself was doing, while being outside enough to be involved in all the action, the bridge between the worlds of the story. Leonie may be the more sympathetic, more morally laudable one, setting up a coven for minority witches who feel the government backed stuff is full of problems, or maybe Theo, about whom all the trouble of the first story revolves, and who feels often to be the true heroine of events. But Niamh is involved in everything, talks to everyone, has a reason to be involved on all sides and so is the great facilitator of the story, all while being still plenty sympathetic enough, with her heart in the right place and sufficiently strong morals that you're on her side, even if she's not all the way up the scale. In purely story logistical terms, she's critical.

So, when you cut out one of the most important voices of your first book, how does the sequel work? You have to replace her. And Dawson does do that... but none of the replacements are really satisfactory.

Most prominently, Ciara, Niamh's evil twin, is inserted into the story and she's really just... not as good. She's less sympathetic (though not completely without her pull - she's hardly had an easy life, as we soon discover), less involved, less knowledgeable (being in a coma for a decade will do that), and just less pulled together. She's someone the story feels like it happens to, for the most part, rather than someone who really has much deliberate effect on the turn of events. I'd say the majority of the chapters are told from her perspective, and by the end it definitely began to feel claustrophobic for it, just because she's so walled off, so hidden from so much of what's going on with everyone else, it's hard to feel like what she sees and does is totally connected to the rest of them.

Is this deliberate? I think so. It fits in very well with the progression of her emotional narrative for us to feel that way. But is it fun? Not really. It works, but even as it achieves what I'm sure Dawson set out for it to achieve, it undercuts a lot of what made the first book good - it was a fast-paced, easy, character driven romp.

It also has the problem that Ciara is spending much of the story hiding herself, pretending to be her twin. And so the audience has information that most of the characters in the story lack, and that can be hard to manage without it getting awfully grating, awfully quickly. Obviously Ciara knows, so we're not alone with the information, but after a while, the frustration of other characters acting in ways that don't help, due to information they don't have and we do... builds. It's inevitable.

And it's magnified by the other problem - the lack of Niamh is partially solved by spreading the viewpoints out to a wider pool. We have more characters, sometimes one offs, whose perspective we get on the story, which of course means more people who don't know what's really going on. The widening of the POV net also necessitates a shallowing of each character's depth, however, even with the additional bulk of pages The Shadow Cabinet has compared to HMRC. I don't object to some of the characters from the first book who fulfilled more of a side role in the story getting pulled in to give their POV now, and in some cases welcome it - Luke, a non-magical character, is an extremely useful view of things to have - but it's not quite done enough to leave the reader feeling satisfied. They're not quite main characters, even still.

That being said, one of the main strengths of the book is Theo's perspective in her own chapters. Theo, teenaged, scared, constantly alert to things that may throw her personal situation back into disarray, is one of the few parts of the story where the lack of knowledge of Ciara's role works. Because Theo suspects. She's smart, strongly magical, and has the opportunity to really see differences, and so the suspicion she has forms a great piece of character work on her dynamic with Niamh, and how she relates to the world, and how that in turn relates back to her history. She's also a very compelling view of a teenager - simultaneously entirely plausible, with very teenaged concerns and slips of judgment, but still very accessible to an adult reader. Her chapters and her role in the events of the story were by far the most enjoyable part for me, and I hope we get even more from her going forward.

Outside of characters, much of what was strong about the first book does remain - the world building has all the hallmarks of good urban fantasy, and blends very well with the real world, picking and choosing which bits to retain and which to change. Much like the first, Dawson is interested in being true to the societal and political realities of Britain to tell her story, whether that's transphobia, racism, class dynamics or Anglo-Irish tensions, but in this it heads more into the directly political, in sometimes interesting ways. We see and interact with the mundane Prime Minister in this, and Dawson has chosen not to make him a direct pastiche of any particular figure, but rather have him take characteristics of several recent Tory PMs (there's definitely some David Cameron in there, but also some Boris Johnson too)... I have to wonder if this is because the story was written when we were so busy chucking one and getting another that she could have no certainty who'd be in charge by the time the book hit publication.

But she also engages a little deeper than that - there's a government aide with strong Dominic Cummings vibes (which gets interesting quickly), and a witch who opens us up to a view that, in witch society, with its strong notes of female... if not supremacy then at least casual disdain for men... even there, we have some people open to accepting "tradwife" style ideologies. With a witchy aesthetic overlay, of course. When this blends with the wider story themes around patriarchy and power dynamics, and the need for some people to see themselves as inherently superior, it lends her whole witch society another layer of realistic complexity that was part of what made the first book work so well for me.

Because this is not, fundamentally, one of those "what if women were the powerful ones" simple stories, like The Power or a hundred others. Juno Dawson acknowledges that even though her siloed witch community may be powerful and may have their own, separate ideologies and prejudices and histories, they are not immune to the power structures endemic in the world around them, and nor are they so inherently "better" that they can choose to rise above them simply by being smart enough, kind enough or in tune with nature enough. They are people living in a complex, intersecting world, full of intersecting identities, problems and relationships, and all parts of that touch all others, for better and for worse.

This, truly, is the strength of the story. Taking the elements of a fairly standard urban fantasy idea and infusing them with something richer at their foundation, to make the whole that much sturdier, deeper and more interesting. In the first book, this was accompanied by the pacey storytelling, the interesting characters and a general surprise and delight to find it doing what it was doing, when it may not have been expected.

However, in book two, the delight has worn off a little. We come in expecting what we had before, and so our bar is that bit higher. And, alas, it has very much succumbed to second in a trilogy syndrome - a lot of the plot feels like filler, like a way of joining us from the first to the inevitable last, and scene-setting for something greater moving in the background. There's an ongoing thread of the plot around the tripartite satanic background enemy, but it remains in that background as other pieces move around it, giving it the necessary time to build up for the climax. Character elements too are clearly being manoeuvred into place, and so the payoff at the end of the story feels... subdued. We're still clearly waiting for the real ending.

But... but. Especially in the final section of the book, some of those bits of scene-setting are genuinely tantalising. Enough to make book two all better? No, not really. But enough to make me think book three may manage to be just as special as book one? Well... I'm certainly hopeful.

--

The Math

Highlights: returning to an interesting world with genuine richness and complexity, getting more depth on some interesting minor characters from book one, Theo is great

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10

Reference: Juno Dawson, The Shadow Cabinet, [Harper Voyager, 2023]

POSTED BY: Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroform_tea

Review: The Little Mermaid

Modern twists make The Little Mermaid succeed in this latest retelling of the classic tale

I first saw the original Disney’s The Little Mermaid in theaters at a time when my adult life was just beginning, full of stress and challenges. The Little Mermaid was the break we needed in grad school and my friends and I loved it. Unlike other animated fairy tales in existence at the time, this princess did the rescuing and she chased her own destiny. I enjoyed the angsty, girl-power, romantic energy wrapped up with a hard-earned happy ending. Later, I came across a hardback collection of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales and eagerly flipped to the story of The Little Mermaid. The original story was, to say the least, very different from my beloved Disney version. It was upsetting, sad, and lacked a happy ending. Life is full of surprises, and thankfully fairy tales can go in a lot of different directions. Now, decades later, after career, marriage, children, and hundreds of viewings, seeing the 2023 live action film version of The Little Mermaid is a full circle moment for me.

The premise of the 2023 The Little Mermaid is very similar to the animated version. So if you are unfamiliar with the story, beware of spoilers. Ariel is the youngest of several mermaid daughters of the Sea King Triton (Javier Bardem), ruler of the Mer-people—half-fish, half-humans who inhabit the underwater realm around the world. Ariel’s mother was killed by humans, so Triton sees them as cruel, dangerous, and generally to be avoided. But Ariel is not so sure. In true oppositional-defiant form, she collects human items from shipwrecks and tries (with mixed success) to learn about the human world on her own. Meanwhile, in a nearby island kingdom, Eric is a young man raised as a prince in the royal household but drawn to everyday life and adventure. This includes life onboard a ship where he works alongside other sailors, much to the dismay of Prime Minister Grimsby (Art Malik) and Eric’s mother Queen Selina (Noma Dumezweni). Eric wants to help his country’s struggling economy through science and exploration. Like Ariel, he has a private storehouse of treasured items he has collected from other places. Both Eric and Ariel feel misunderstood by their parents. The meet-cute happens when Ariel swims up to the surface to check out fireworks from a passing ship carrying Eric, but a sudden storm quickly destroys the ship and tosses the unconscious prince into the ocean. Ariel saves him, bringing him to the surface; however, she is forced to leave him behind on the shore as other humans approach. The sea witch Ursula convinces Ariel to trade her voice in exchange for a brief chance to be human so Ariel can both reunite with Eric and explore the human world. If he kisses her before sunset on the third day of her humanity, she will remain human. If not, her soul will belong to Ursula forever.

The visual effects for The Little Mermaid are beautiful, including the opening dive down into the foamy sea, which is breathtaking. But the film truly succeeds due to appealing performances from the lead actors. Halle Bailey is perfection as Ariel. She balances youthful wonder and defiant confidence with a tiny bit of actual respect and mindfulness of the dangers of the world. That slightly more restrained exuberance gives this mermaid the complexity needed to carry a live action film. Jonah Hauer-King delivers an endearing performance as the conflicted prince with a tragic backstory. He manages to be authentically sweet and nerdy as well as strong and heroic. Art Malik elevates the character of Grimsby to a leader and mentor. Melissa McCarthy slays as Ursula. She is wickedly sarcastic and manipulative until the final climactic battle scene. Then her visual effects go a little wonky and become distracting. More on that later.

How does the live action film compare to the 1989 animated film? I rewatched the animated version after seeing the live action film. The 1989 version still holds up pretty well: the songs are fantastic and the plot is engaging with its star-crossed, headstrong teens, culture clash, and big climactic fight scenes. However, adapting an animation to live action means changes. Some elements that work in cartoon form will not translate well to real life. Overall, compared to the original, this is an excellent adaptation. It closely tracks the animated film’s plot and retains its key showstopper songs. But it is a strong film in its own right, even for a non-Disney princess loving audience.

Here are some of the differences: Instead of hanging out at the palace, Ariel’s ethnically diverse sisters each patrol a different sea across the world and reunite periodically to report to Triton. I am sure this will have major spin-off potential but, in the film, the sisters remain mostly silent, which is a disappointment. Apparently Ariel’s territory is the Caribbean Sea because the live action film has a more distinctively Caribbean vibe. Eric’s home is a small island kingdom whose residents have British and Caribbean accents and the marketplace scene is very tropical. Watch for Jodi Benson (the original Ariel voice actor) in a funny cameo with Halle Bailey during this scene.

There are also three major backstory details in the new film which add depth to the story: 1) Ariel’s mother was killed by humans, hence Triton’s bitterness towards them; 2) Eric was shipwrecked as a baby and rescued by the queen, who adopted him into the royal household, hence her fear of her son spending time on long sea voyages; 3) Ursula is Triton’s sister—this is such a fun twist but it is never really explored. Not doing more with the family drama was a missed opportunity for the story.

Another general difference occurs when Ariel agrees to trade her voice for her humanity but Ursula secretly wipes Ariel’s memory of the need for the kiss. As a result, Ariel and Eric are just getting to know each other, she has no sense of urgency, and she is just as interested in his culture as in him. A lyrical difference occurs in the song, “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” The words are slightly changed so that Ursula’s original comments on society’s sexism are cut, because apparently that society isn’t sexist anymore—or maybe the film fears the sarcasm will be lost on modern audiences. The song “Kiss the Girl” also has a few adjustments, modernizing some of the lyrics with an emphasis on consent.

Overall, most of the new tweaks are fun ways to add complexity to the story. Despite those improvements, there are a few things that did not work for me in this film. And they are mostly, to my great surprise, related to visual effects. I’m generally not a fan of cute talking animals or objects—even in animation—but in a live action film, the effect can be especially strange. The visuals of live action Sebastian (grumpy crab/royal advisor, voiced by Daveed Diggs) and live action Scuttle (silly seagull friend, voiced by Awkwafina) were okay, but the effects for live action Flounder (Ariel’s tropical fish bestie) were very odd, leaning heavily into a weirdly realistic/uncanny valley effect rather than the more fantastical designs of Ariel’s other two animal friends. Jacob Tremblay did a good job with the dialogue, but the fish visuals were just off and a bit unsettling. (I would have converted him to a merboy friend instead of a strange looking talking fish.)

The other weird visual was the giant Ursula monster in the climactic battle scene. As in the animated version, Ursula angrily grows to enormous heights in her final battle with Ariel and Eric. In the live action version, giant-sized Ursula’s head seems slightly out of proportion with her tentacled body, and the facial expressions don’t have the intensity needed for that last big scene. However, most of the visual effects in the film are gorgeous, making the smaller visual issues surprising because, well, this is Disney.

My other few quibbles about the film have to do with small plot points. Ariel’s mother was killed by humans, but Ariel and her sisters never discuss the tragedy or how it changed their family. Even one or two lines might have added some emotional heft to the story without becoming too upsetting. Another minor annoyance occurs in the scene where Ariel gets to drive a horse-drawn wagon near the village marketplace. In the animated version, Eric gives her the reins and she drives aggressively but with surprising competence—at one point successfully jumping over a chasm while Eric comically ducks under the seat in fear, and after they land safely on the other side, he leans back with his hands behind his head, indicating that he trusts her. In the live action film, Ariel takes the reins and smashes into multiple fruit vendors, creating a mess as they careen along. For some reason, chaotic driving or riding appears to be a requirement in some fantasy films, but in this story it is very out of character for Ariel. Although she is new to life on land, this is a princess who fulfills serious duties, she saved Eric, and she loves elements of human culture—they are sacred to her. I’m not sure why we needed this destruction.

Overall, I loved The Little Mermaid. Halle Bailey’s beautiful facial expressions and astonishing voice captures the heart of the story in all of the classic songs. Watching her belt out “Part of Your World” made me teary and nostalgic. Despite being a kid-friendly movie, the entire cast was both strong and authentic, especially in the second act, when Ariel is unable to speak but delivers powerful emotional energy in each scene. The updated adventure was addictive, leaving me wanting more. And, given the number of loose threads in this story, hopefully we will get more.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights:

• Sweet story
• Plot holes
• Strong acting
• Mostly gorgeous visuals outshining some surprisingly weird effects

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

'Hocus Pocus 2' follows in Disney's bad habit of humanizing monsters

The sequel to the '90s Halloween cult film waters down its villains, but the producers forgot water is deadly to witches

It's hard to discern what kind of movie Hocus Pocus 2 wants to be. It's not, properly speaking, funny. Not particularly scary. Not as heartwarming as it wants to be. Not all that thrilling, especially in the third act. And even when it aims for the vibe of the first movie, that elusive blend of creepy and ridiculous, it's afraid of being too much of either.

The original Hocus Pocus is either a forgettable oddity or a perennial classic, depending on whom you ask. After a lifetime of perfecting the cinematic witch, Disney gave the world a curious variation: a trio of clumsy yet deadly, charming yet predatory, immensely powerful yet not very bright sisters who subverted the feminine archetype of the life-giver by choosing to be life-stealers. Their plan (to gain immortality by consuming children's souls) was no doubt evil, but their slapstick antics and their ignorance of modern life made their threat level wildly irregular, like an update of Macbeth's Weird Sisters by way of the Three Stooges.

As a 21st-century continuation of the story, Hocus Pocus 2 had several tasks to fulfill. Among the ones it succeeds at, it acknowledges that social attitudes toward witchcraft have shifted since the '90s. The witch is now a respectable symbol of female power, sought by a generation dissatisfied with patriarchal spirituality. At the same time, this cultural rebranding opens a market for commodification: the villains are dismayed to see that their old house, where they cooked their perverse potions, has become a theme park version of itself where magical herbs and crystals are sold over the counter. While the heroes in the first movie were effectively witch hunters, the heroines in the sequel are witches themselves. However, this redefinition of the witch role is not fully developed. The development of the heroines' powers competes for narrative focus with the evil sisters' plan to become almighty superwitches, which makes the pace feel bumpy. In theory, it should be possible to showcase both quests in a feature-length film, but since this plot can't make up its mind about which team should be the protagonists, it fails at making either of them compelling.

The opportunity to make commentary on today's womanhood is equally wasted. In the original movie, the witches' motivation for killing children was to remain young forever, a plot point that contains interesting questions about the image expectations imposed on women (and a disturbing subtext about the need to sacrifice motherhood to meet those expectations); in the sequel, they're taken to a modern drugstore full of cosmetic products. No meaningful statement on the underlying evils of ageism is made, and the scene is only used for cultural shock jokes. In more general terms, the movie's evident intention to deliver a feminist message is hindered by unexplainable storytelling choices. There are numerous ways to make a movie about female power; writing every single male character as a useless simpleton is not one of those ways.

Presumably, a witch that kidnaps children is a simple character to build a story around, but the ongoing fad of witch rehabilitation complicates the writer's job. In Hocus Pocus 2, the insertion of a prologue with unnecessary backstory for our villains is the main culprit. Disney has invented its own subtype of villain problem: it's terrified of plain badness. For some reason, Disney villains now need a traumatic past that justifies their later atrocities. That approach gave questionable results in Maleficent, definitely didn't work in Cruella, where Disney went for the ill-advised route of trying to spark empathy for a puppy flayer, and works even less in Hocus Pocus 2, where it hopes that the tragic backstory will humanize a family of child eaters. One can only fear for what Disney will do to the lion Scar in the upcoming prequel.

The ending of Hocus Pocus 2 aspires to make us sympathize with poor Winifred, whose only true wish is to stay close to her sisters. The tearful moment is meant to distract us from the fact that these are child eaters who should not be written as misunderstood outcasts. By inducing the painful whiplash of turning these characters from world-threatening monsters into relatable victims, Disney breaks the neck of the story before throwing its lifeless husk at us.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 5/10.

Bonuses: +1 for the flying Roomba, +1 for the other flying Roomba. I'm feeling unreasonably generous today.

Penalties: −1 for tonal inconsistency, −1 for lack of focus, −1 for a broken moral compass.

Nerd Coefficient: 4/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Microreview [Book] The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

A story that uses lyrical prose and a propulsive plot to create the good kind of sorcery.

Decency to women should be a no-brainer. Malevolence to women for the sole fact that they’re women should be seen as categorical malarkey. But many in power have contorted something as simple as decency and trapped it away like Rapunzel in her tower. Empathy has become a rarity, a forgotten magic that when displayed should evoke a feeling of commonplace but instead seems like miraculous sorcery. The Once and Future Witches understands the necessity to claim that sorcery. Through lyrical writing, fairytales, and a motley crew of characters, it creates magic through prose while also championing the simple but essential magic of kindness.

In The Once and Future Witches, it is 1893 and witching is outlawed--their magic barred and buried by men. A woman has more than just magic inaccessible to them: they also lack the right to vote. Enter the Eastwood sisters: three magical, fractured siblings with completely different personalities who reunite upon mystical happenstance, and eventually join the suffragist movement. Things become complicated when they try to implement magic into the suffragist agenda, amidst anti-magic protestations. But a dissenting woman’s scorn for witchery pales in comparison to most men. Men who will go to dire and dirty lengths to maintain dominance.

This is a novel that uses the best, unique qualities of literature. Every instance is wrapped in prose that is lyrical without miring into perpetual, showy poetry. You ogle at its beauty, enraptured in its atmosphere, but it pushes you ahead to the next story beat rather than being mired in it until it becomes too much. There are quick asides into fairytales that augment the grander story. And as fluid as the dialogue is, it’s the interiority of the protagonists that elevate them into complex characters. The three Eastwood sisters (James, Agnes, and Beatrice) would fall into archetypes – whether it be a bookish type or a renegade - from a lessor author, but Alix E. Harrow sets up those characteristics and then expands upon it, until their core is something unique and complex and the archetypes are just part of their lining.

There are secondary characters who don’t have room to expand as much as they could, and sometimes feel like pieces to advance the plot rather than people. But for every time these people seem like a plot device, the novel takes a couple nice dives into exploring them through the themes of racism within the suffragist movement, stubbornness against societal change, and other cutting ideas. Despite some characterization inadequacies, I never felt like the themes lacked room to breathe. The Once and Future Witches does the rare feat of being a character-centric tale, while never losing focus of the plot. The themes of sexism, racism, found family, and familial disputes are paired with story beats and twists that propel the plot forward.

Inequality lurks in the darkness. It festers in the black mold that vile rhetoric wraps around our mind. It’s almost like it moves with our shadow, following us around whether we like it or not. The Once and Future Witches offers an important message about the rewards of tenacity in the face of adversity. And offers some hope that many humans are well-rounded and capable—apt enough to get us out of the hellhole that existed both in 1893 and today. Hopefully one day, we can relax in the shade in which no one fears the dark shadows, and just enjoy the breeze.

The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 For the best lyrical prose I’ve read all year.

Negatives:  -1 For some missed opportunities with secondary characters.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, stand-up comedian, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!

Harrow, Alix E. The Once and Future Witches  [Orbit, 2020].

Microreview [book]: House of the Rising Sun, by Kristen Painter

Painter, Kristen. House of the Rising Sun. Orbit: May 13, 2014.

Breaking News: Fauxmance Strikes Again!

The Meat

I have a hate affair with urban fantasy. The mixing of various otherworldly creatures and a seedy cityscape just seems like a losing combination to me, and there have been precious few books (or movies, come to think of it) that have challenged my low-grade distaste with the subgenre. Does that mean I'm some sort of purist who wishes to insist that vampires or whatever should only appear in stories set in medieval Eastern Europe, or something? No, not really—but shouldn't there be a compelling reason why a given story is placed in a particular setting? For example, contemporary New Orleans just screams vampires because of that Christian Slater movie (you know the one I mean, and yes, I know he's not the actor from that film that people usually focus on, per se). But if, when writing a new urban fantasy story, the decision is made to set it in New Orleans and we the readers begin to sense a "yeah, it's set there because lots of other otherworldly tales were set there!" vibe, that's not exactly a mark in said new story's favor. In that respect, I liked Meyer's decision to set Twilight (etc.) in the American northwest, a 'region less trodden by', so to speak.

  Sadly, Kristen Painter's new human, vampire, voodoo, witch, 'fae' (magical being) mash-up House of the Rising Sun is stuck back in that supernatural cesspool, New Orleans. There are of course some things to appreciate about the story (interesting echoes of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard! An appealing variety of races/character types!), as there are about the city (test tube shots! Those doughnut things!), but do the good bits outweigh the not so good ones? Nope—or rather, insert whatever folksy quasi-Creole expression "the natives" of New Orleans use for "no" here.

 The logic of the various races' magic, etc. was intriguing, and so for the first third of the book or so just learning about the principles of the world Painter was creating was enough to sustain my interest, but where she lost me was in her decision to hang the story around two of the least believable (and, in Harlow's case, least likable) characters I've encountered in ages.

  Remember the Vomit Comet at amusement parks, where in the blink of an eye you've moved 180 degrees? That's what Augustine and Harlow seem to do in terms of character motivation, and at times it induced the same visceral reaction in me as I clutched my spinning head, trying not to paint the furniture. Harlow in particular is all over the place. She's supposedly a mousy yet also smoking hot computer nerd obsessed with RPGs (every male computer nerd's ultimate fantasy girl, no doubt! Take another look at the cover of the book, posted above), who hasn't spoken to her Norma Desmond-like mother in years because the latter denied the former the chance to form a relationship with her father. Wait, what? She severed ties with her loving, compassionate mother because mommy wouldn't give her any info on daddy? There's nothing believable about this at all, and before you get on my case over the absurdity of pointing out suspension of disbelief problems in an tale filled with vampires, witches and an almost limitless variety of magical 'fae', this is an issue of character development and motivation, or in other words, the emotional and dramatic core of the story (since all the magical stuff is just window dressing, in the end). If we find it impossible to believe the characters' relationships or actions, that's a serious problem no matter what kind of story is being told.

  The relationship at the center of the book, though, is the burgeoning romance between the fae Augustine (who is supposedly as tough as he is self-confident: he pompously remarks at one point, to reassure the sometimes brash, sometimes wimpy Harlow, 'I am by far and away the most frightening creature that lives in this city') and Harlow. Here, too, I'm not buying it. Augustine is perfect in every way, impossibly sensitive throughout Harlow's crazy mood swings ("I want you out of this house" followed by, a day or so later, pleas that he not stay with her), and so deeply does he care for her after spending a few days near her that he prioritizes her moods and feelings over the ostensibly critical investigation (of Harlow's mother's murder).

   Not only would no actual being, human or otherwise, be this infuriatingly accommodating, his pathological overprotectiveness of Harlow and her precious feelings frequently impedes his efforts to find a solution to the very problem upsetting her, meaning any self-respecting woman (human or otherwise) would tear him to shreds for his counterproductive condescension (and to make matters worse, he utterly fails to protect Harlow from physical danger, but does a bang-up job shielding her from any risk that she might get tired, etc.). And if Augustine's really such superhuman man candy, how is it that two totally normal humans could get the jump on him? If run-of-the-mill humans could manage to grab his arms before he could capture a certain vampire ("Augustine jerked away, but it was too late"), even his much vaunted abilities become mere deus ex machina tools to be deployed—or in this case found wanting—when the romance at the heart of the book demands he let Harlow down (or, alternatively, impress her/us with his prowess later).

  There is also a certain unevenness in the writing, a tendency either to get carried away in hyperbole or possibly a lack of editing for plot consistency (the third person narration gives us windows into various characters' psychological states, including one who mentally remarks how much more exorbitant a certain service had been than she expected, only to follow up a few pages later with "[it] had been as exorbitant as expected". But this is all small potatoes next to the fact that there's nothing likeable about Harlow and nothing believable about Augustine. This is a fauxmance, I'm afraid.

The Math

Objective assessment: 5/10

Bonuses: +1 for echoes of Sunset Boulevard, +1 for an interesting menagerie of creatures in this world

Penalties: -1 for the lack of believable characterization (and wildly shifting character motivation), -1 for everything about Harlow, and -1 for the fauxmance between her and Augustine

Nerd coefficient: 4/10 "not very good"

[Even though a 4/10 probably sounds brutally low, it's not nearly as bad as you might think: see here for more info on how we score these things.]

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by Zhaoyun, sf/f book and movie aficionado and main cast member of Nerds of a Feather since early 2013.

Microreview [book]: The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

The Meat

   It gives me no pleasure at all to reveal that, despite coming out in 2003, before Pratchett was tragically diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, The Wee Free Men is far from his best work. 

   For one thing, there is no solidity, personality-wise, to child protagonist Tiffany Aching; sometimes she's incredibly brave and wise, and other times she seems kind of thick, to the point that there's some serious dramatic irony where the reader has to wait for the protagonist to 'catch up' to what's happening and what she should do next. Just about the only consistent characteristic she (or rather, Pratchett) has is an out-of-control predilection for using exclamation marks. Moreover, the Chalk and its inhabitants, while mildly interesting as a setting, presents a number of head-scratchers to the reader: for one thing, Tiffany is so obviously superior to her loser brother, and indeed everyone around her, that the idea she would be ignored or marginalized in favor of the ever annoying bro is nigh impossible to swallow.

   Naturally, being Pratchett, it's not all bad—there are laugh out loud moments aplenty, and even a few poignant ones—but it lacks the dazzle of the more established Discworld character lines (especially the Ankh-Morpork Guards and the Witches of Lancre). The idea of  First Sight and Second Thoughts (i.e., seeing what's really there and thinking carefully) is amusing, but it doesn't really constitute Granny Weatherwax-style magic, and unfortunately for Tiffany, that makes Granny a much cooler force around which to shape a story.

   Perhaps I'm being too hard on Pratchett, however; after all, this book was at least partially intended for a young adult audience, so he probably felt a need to dumb down the jokes, the writing, and everything. As I am sadly no longer a particularly young adult, I kept hoping for a grander edifice, a hilarious mystery of the sort Discworld novels regularly deliver. But what I got, instead, was an attempt by an older sister to rescue her younger brother, not because she likes him, but because he's her younger brother. I like her motivations, but if she's so wise, she should know to pick her battles, and her brother is sooo not worth fighting for!

   I should probably at least mention the Nac Mac Feegle, the eponymous Wee Free Men. But what is there to say, really? They're just really small Scotsmen (ethnic markers of which show up in such idiosyncratic spelling as 'heid', which fans of Mike Myers' So I Married an Axe Murderer will know just how to pronounce thanks to the uproarious 'Ack, he's got such a 'uge heid!' scene), and so they fight and drink and steal and occasionally get killed and make comments and hide and whatnot, none of which, in the end, is all that interesting.

   If my disappointment with Pratchett is showing, that itself should also reveal just how highly I esteem many of his other works. In some ways, Pratchett has only himself to blame for this rather negative review: it is he, with classic works like Carpe Jugulum and Going Postal, who has set the bar so high.

The Math

Objective Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for classic Pratchett cleverness with 'First Sight and Second Thoughts'

Penalties: -1 for too many exclamation marks! and -1 for Tiffany being, paradoxically, not cool enough to hang a story around, yet too cool for any of the rest of the Chalk characters

Nerd Coefficient: 5/10 "Equal parts good and bad"

[See here for why this isn't quite as negative a score as it might appear.]