Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!
David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker
St. Martin's Press
Nonfiction, Autobiography/Media Reference
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Few movies can claim to have changed the entertainment landscape like the 1980 classic Airplane!. From the opening shot of the jet plane tail slicing through the clouds to the menacing chords of the Jaws theme to the final roll of credits riddled with humorous inserts, it redefined what comedy could do and changed the lives of most everyone involved, not to mention numerous fans in the decades since its premiere. But long before Ted Striker developed his drinking problem or Captain Oveur asked a young boy about gladiator movies, the Zucker brothers and their best friend Jim Abrahams were just three Midwestern boys who loved to laugh and make others laugh. This is the story of the long, unlikely journey that took them from Wisconsin to Los Angeles, from improvised stage shows to the silver screen, and from obscurity to international stardom.
REVIEW: Airplane! was a staple of my childhood (as was the criminally short-lived and ahead-of-its-time TV series Police Squad!; I never found the Naked Gun trilogy quite as consistently funny as the series, myself, even before the whole O. J. Simpson thing soured me on rewatches); it's one of those movies where one can watch it a dozen time and catch something new each and every time through. For all the silliness, though, it would've fallen flat on its face if it hadn't been so meticulously and artfully constructed, from the script to the cinematography to the casting choices to the score. This book delves into how the trio learned to work together, hone their sense of humor and writing skills via live theater, and not only survived the culture shock of 1970's Los Angeles but managed to eventually live every creator's dream of landing a studio contract and filming a genre-defining hit. It was not a straightforward road, nor was it one without doubts or setbacks or mistakes.
The story wanders somewhat in the telling; written in something like screenplay format, the book is a dialog, like an interview where the trio are sitting down to tell their story to the audience of the reader. Along the way are extras and interjections from colleagues, cast members, executives, and several people whose lives were influenced by Airplane!. (The audiobook features several guest narrators for these different "parts".) As a result, the story sometimes feels a little scattershot, moving back and forth and wandering on tangents before getting back to the main "plot" of the making of the movie. This lack of focus almost cost it a half-star, but overall it's an interesting examination of the movie that never should've existed, and a lost era when Hollywood still embraced unique, new voices and was willing to take risks. The Zuckers and Abrahams are right that Airplane! couldn't have happened today. (Though I personally always take such assertions with a little grain of salt; no envelope-pushing classic could be "made today", in part because different times have different envelopes and in part because they themselves already pushed that envelope, so any attempt to make the same thing again isn't close enough to the edge anymore to push anything. That doesn't mean today's metaphoric envelopes don't still have edges to be pushed, or that nobody is capable of pushing them, though in today's climate of endless franchises and remakes, it's far less likely a major studio would back such an experiment. But I digress...) The whole is an intriguing glimpse of cinematic lore for anyone who enjoys the film or the history of cinema and comedy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
This Book is Not Yet Rated (Peter Bognanni) - My Review
Young Frankenstein: A Mel Brooks Book: The Story of the Making of the Film (Mel Brooks with Rebecca Keegan) - My Review
Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir (Brent Spiner) - My Review
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Friday, December 5, 2025
The Aeronaut's Windlass (Jim Butcher)
The Aeronaut's Windlass
The Cinder Spires series, Book 1
Jim Butcher
Penguin
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Captain Francis Grimm used to be a rising star in the airship forces of Spire Albion, one of the massive, ancient structures towering over the deadly, mist-shrouded outside world to pierce the skies. But when a mission went terribly wrong, Grimm was left holding the bag, drummed out of service... officially, that is. As a privateer aboard the vessel AMS Predator, Grimm and his loyal crew still serve the spire in their own way. After a chase left the Predator damaged, Grimm finds himself out of commission, on the hook for repairs he can ill afford.
Then, in a bold surprise attack, ships from Spire Aurora descend on Albion, the opening salvo of an audacious plan.
Along with green Guard recruits Gwendolyn Lancaster, headstrong daughter of a wealthy family whose crystal-growing vats literally keep the spire powered and the airships aloft, and Bridget Tagwynn, whose lack of social graces and manners nearly bring disaster on her before she's officially in uniform, the feline-eyed warrior-born Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster, and the cat prince Rowl of the House of the Silent Paws, Grimm and the crew of the Predator are recruited by Albion's secretive Spirearch Addison for a secret mission. Aurora's attack not only left an unknown number of enemies hiding in the labyrinth of ventilation shafts and other hidden places of the spire, but has to have been coordinated and planned by a traitor - hence, Addison turning to those outside the existing military ranks or too fresh to have been compromised. With them also travel two peculiar Etherealists, Master Ferus and apprentice Folly, whose ability to perceive and manipulate the ethereal currents of the world may be instrumental to untangling the real reason for Aurora's attack. But what the mismatched crew discovers is something far bigger and more dangerous than mere war... at least, mere war among earthly humans. This may be the beginning of the end of the spires themselves, and all the life that depends on them.
REVIEW: The Aeronaut's Windlass promises a steampunk-flavored swashbuckling yarn in a fantastic world of crystal-powered airships, vast towers, a colorful culture with such oddities as "warrior-born" people born with recessive catlike genes granting them superior strength and agility (but which are seen as slightly less than fully human), and sapient, mildly evolved cats with their own culture and politics and language, set on a world that 's either in a far enough (or alternate enough) future as to be near-unrecognizable - populated with monsters that have a dash of Lovecraftian inexplicability and malice - or is an actual alien planet. Like many a swashbuckler before it, it incorporates liberal dashes of nautical warfare into its airship battles, and it populates itself with a cast that is not entirely unexpected or excessively complex: the brilliant captain wrongly maligned by politics yet loyal to the flag, the hotheaded young noblewoman eager to prove herself beyond the shelter of family privilege, the less sophisticated newcomer who partially exists for the world and its rules to be explained to (as a proxy for the reader), and so forth. This is, indeed, pretty much what Butcher delivers.
From the opening pages, the story offers adventure and action and danger, managing to trickle in the strangeness and the peculiarities of its setting - a world where unseen "ethereal" currents act on airships like wind, "gauntlets" discharging rays of bright heat in lieu of firearms and "guns" that work on steam rather than traditional gunpowder, and where the ground beyond the towers is shrouded in perpetual mist and populated with dangerous beasts - between thrilling bursts of action and the odd touch of humor and humanity. If the people and situations are somewhat familiar from other, similar swashbucklers and action stories, well, there's a reason such things become tropes: they tend to work more often than not. For the most part, the story's interesting enough and the characters have sufficient chemistry that it's easy to gloss over the sense of familiarity (and a few instances of plot convenient developments and nick-of-time reversals of fortune). Grimm and company must navigate intraspire politics and friction, as well as interspecies tensions in dealing with the cat clans who only rarely interact with humans, as they attempt to grapple with foes who are equally cunning and dedicated to their own masters and plans. For a sizeable volume, it moves at a decent clip for the most part, only bogging down when Butcher gets a little too involved and intricate in blow-by-blows of action sequences and fights, particularly the climactic one at the end. It's more a stagger than outright stumble, though, even if it makes the conclusion itself less definitively conclusive than it might have been, and thus a little weak.
Overall, even if it's a little familiar underneath the interesting worldbuilding, I enjoyed it. I even liked the parts with the cats more than I anticipated, with Rowr and his kin coming across as distinct and intelligent characters in their own right, less stilted and stereotyped than some people portray felines. I'd be game to continue the series at some point, when I'm next in the mood for a steampunk-flavored swashbuckler with a side of clever cats.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Senlin Ascends (Josiah Bancroft) - My Review
Arabella of Mars (David D. Levine) - My Review
Leviathan (Scott Westerfield) - My Review
The Cinder Spires series, Book 1
Jim Butcher
Penguin
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Captain Francis Grimm used to be a rising star in the airship forces of Spire Albion, one of the massive, ancient structures towering over the deadly, mist-shrouded outside world to pierce the skies. But when a mission went terribly wrong, Grimm was left holding the bag, drummed out of service... officially, that is. As a privateer aboard the vessel AMS Predator, Grimm and his loyal crew still serve the spire in their own way. After a chase left the Predator damaged, Grimm finds himself out of commission, on the hook for repairs he can ill afford.
Then, in a bold surprise attack, ships from Spire Aurora descend on Albion, the opening salvo of an audacious plan.
Along with green Guard recruits Gwendolyn Lancaster, headstrong daughter of a wealthy family whose crystal-growing vats literally keep the spire powered and the airships aloft, and Bridget Tagwynn, whose lack of social graces and manners nearly bring disaster on her before she's officially in uniform, the feline-eyed warrior-born Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster, and the cat prince Rowl of the House of the Silent Paws, Grimm and the crew of the Predator are recruited by Albion's secretive Spirearch Addison for a secret mission. Aurora's attack not only left an unknown number of enemies hiding in the labyrinth of ventilation shafts and other hidden places of the spire, but has to have been coordinated and planned by a traitor - hence, Addison turning to those outside the existing military ranks or too fresh to have been compromised. With them also travel two peculiar Etherealists, Master Ferus and apprentice Folly, whose ability to perceive and manipulate the ethereal currents of the world may be instrumental to untangling the real reason for Aurora's attack. But what the mismatched crew discovers is something far bigger and more dangerous than mere war... at least, mere war among earthly humans. This may be the beginning of the end of the spires themselves, and all the life that depends on them.
REVIEW: The Aeronaut's Windlass promises a steampunk-flavored swashbuckling yarn in a fantastic world of crystal-powered airships, vast towers, a colorful culture with such oddities as "warrior-born" people born with recessive catlike genes granting them superior strength and agility (but which are seen as slightly less than fully human), and sapient, mildly evolved cats with their own culture and politics and language, set on a world that 's either in a far enough (or alternate enough) future as to be near-unrecognizable - populated with monsters that have a dash of Lovecraftian inexplicability and malice - or is an actual alien planet. Like many a swashbuckler before it, it incorporates liberal dashes of nautical warfare into its airship battles, and it populates itself with a cast that is not entirely unexpected or excessively complex: the brilliant captain wrongly maligned by politics yet loyal to the flag, the hotheaded young noblewoman eager to prove herself beyond the shelter of family privilege, the less sophisticated newcomer who partially exists for the world and its rules to be explained to (as a proxy for the reader), and so forth. This is, indeed, pretty much what Butcher delivers.
From the opening pages, the story offers adventure and action and danger, managing to trickle in the strangeness and the peculiarities of its setting - a world where unseen "ethereal" currents act on airships like wind, "gauntlets" discharging rays of bright heat in lieu of firearms and "guns" that work on steam rather than traditional gunpowder, and where the ground beyond the towers is shrouded in perpetual mist and populated with dangerous beasts - between thrilling bursts of action and the odd touch of humor and humanity. If the people and situations are somewhat familiar from other, similar swashbucklers and action stories, well, there's a reason such things become tropes: they tend to work more often than not. For the most part, the story's interesting enough and the characters have sufficient chemistry that it's easy to gloss over the sense of familiarity (and a few instances of plot convenient developments and nick-of-time reversals of fortune). Grimm and company must navigate intraspire politics and friction, as well as interspecies tensions in dealing with the cat clans who only rarely interact with humans, as they attempt to grapple with foes who are equally cunning and dedicated to their own masters and plans. For a sizeable volume, it moves at a decent clip for the most part, only bogging down when Butcher gets a little too involved and intricate in blow-by-blows of action sequences and fights, particularly the climactic one at the end. It's more a stagger than outright stumble, though, even if it makes the conclusion itself less definitively conclusive than it might have been, and thus a little weak.
Overall, even if it's a little familiar underneath the interesting worldbuilding, I enjoyed it. I even liked the parts with the cats more than I anticipated, with Rowr and his kin coming across as distinct and intelligent characters in their own right, less stilted and stereotyped than some people portray felines. I'd be game to continue the series at some point, when I'm next in the mood for a steampunk-flavored swashbuckler with a side of clever cats.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Senlin Ascends (Josiah Bancroft) - My Review
Arabella of Mars (David D. Levine) - My Review
Leviathan (Scott Westerfield) - My Review
Thursday, December 4, 2025
When Among Crows (Veronica Roth)
When Among Crows
The Curse Bearer series, Book 1
Veronica Roth
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Dymitr traveled from the old country to Chicago on a quest, seeking perhaps the most powerful witch the world has ever seen, Baba Jaga. He is descended from a long line of monster hunters, self-styled knights of the Holy Order who are determined to slay the monsters who hide in plain sight among ordinary mortals. If he were to succeed against the witch where many a knight has failed, he would become a legend... but he has another reason for his hunt, one he has hidden even from his own kin. In the uneasy company of Ala, an inhuman burdened by a deadly curse, he must find the witch before time runs out and his own people hunt him down.
REVIEW: Set in a modern Chicago with a hidden underworld of monsters, with roots deep in Eastern European folklore, there's a fair bit to enjoy in When Among Crows... but there's also enough holding it back to keep it from that solid fourth star in the ratings.
From the outset, there's an intriguing mythic feel to Dymitr and his journey, as he confronts a guardian leszy to obtain a rare, magical fern flower from a hidden grotto, with hints about the secret nature of his quest. The trail then leads to a small movie theater specializing in horror shows run by zmory, magical beings who feed on fear, and specifically to the curse-burdened Ala. So far, I was enjoying the story, as it moved at a fair clip and did a decent job crafting its hidden world, how the unseen creatures have adapted to modern America and learned to extract what they need from humans, and establishing its rules; magic, here, is based on debt and sacrifice, and there's been enough human misery and exploitation in a modern city like Chicago for a thriving underworld of mystical beings from around the world, though most of the ones Dymitr encounters are conveniently ones from his own Eastern European homeland. The Holy Order itself relies on pain and sacrifice for the magics they use to destroy the "evil" beings, creating a generations-long chain equating suffering and abuse with purity and even familial love (not to mention a generations-long chain of xenophobia and extreme intolerance ensconced in impenetrable trappings of "tradition"). These are not happy people, either knights or "monsters", and it's not always a pleasant place to be as a reader, but it is intriguing.
As Ala and Dymitr pick up another inhuman companion, the anger-eating strzygon Nico, I started feeling an itch of discontent. The events of this tale unfold over the course of a couple nights. Dymitr is an outsider to the Chicago monster community, even before they figure out his true origins. Yet it takes only a couple hours max for both Nico and Ala to bond with him to the point of being willing to defend him against their own kind... and the same for Dymitr, when his kid sister insists on following her big brother on his hunt. (She really was a pointless character, existing to pop up like a fun house ghost whenever the story needed a little jump.) There are even sparks between Nico and Dymitr. I just did not buy the speed at which this happened, given the histories and the hurts and the many secrets that linger between them all, for all that the trio aren't a bad character mix ... especially when, while the personal relationship evolution is turbo-charged, the tale itself bogs down in painful backstories and stretches of dialog and dithering when the metaphoric clock is ticking.
The ending seems to forget a key threat, drawing out a confrontation and final twist and leaving the story in an odd place that didn't seem to really fit with what had come before and what must surely come after. I know this is the first of a duology, but it did not feel like a conclusion so much as a shrug. While it was reasonably well written and I enjoyed several aspects of the story, the whole just wasn't my cup of cocoa and didn't quite work for me.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Book Eaters (Sunyi Dean) - My Review
Discount Armageddon (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Strange Practice (Vivian Shaw) - My Review
The Curse Bearer series, Book 1
Veronica Roth
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Dymitr traveled from the old country to Chicago on a quest, seeking perhaps the most powerful witch the world has ever seen, Baba Jaga. He is descended from a long line of monster hunters, self-styled knights of the Holy Order who are determined to slay the monsters who hide in plain sight among ordinary mortals. If he were to succeed against the witch where many a knight has failed, he would become a legend... but he has another reason for his hunt, one he has hidden even from his own kin. In the uneasy company of Ala, an inhuman burdened by a deadly curse, he must find the witch before time runs out and his own people hunt him down.
REVIEW: Set in a modern Chicago with a hidden underworld of monsters, with roots deep in Eastern European folklore, there's a fair bit to enjoy in When Among Crows... but there's also enough holding it back to keep it from that solid fourth star in the ratings.
From the outset, there's an intriguing mythic feel to Dymitr and his journey, as he confronts a guardian leszy to obtain a rare, magical fern flower from a hidden grotto, with hints about the secret nature of his quest. The trail then leads to a small movie theater specializing in horror shows run by zmory, magical beings who feed on fear, and specifically to the curse-burdened Ala. So far, I was enjoying the story, as it moved at a fair clip and did a decent job crafting its hidden world, how the unseen creatures have adapted to modern America and learned to extract what they need from humans, and establishing its rules; magic, here, is based on debt and sacrifice, and there's been enough human misery and exploitation in a modern city like Chicago for a thriving underworld of mystical beings from around the world, though most of the ones Dymitr encounters are conveniently ones from his own Eastern European homeland. The Holy Order itself relies on pain and sacrifice for the magics they use to destroy the "evil" beings, creating a generations-long chain equating suffering and abuse with purity and even familial love (not to mention a generations-long chain of xenophobia and extreme intolerance ensconced in impenetrable trappings of "tradition"). These are not happy people, either knights or "monsters", and it's not always a pleasant place to be as a reader, but it is intriguing.
As Ala and Dymitr pick up another inhuman companion, the anger-eating strzygon Nico, I started feeling an itch of discontent. The events of this tale unfold over the course of a couple nights. Dymitr is an outsider to the Chicago monster community, even before they figure out his true origins. Yet it takes only a couple hours max for both Nico and Ala to bond with him to the point of being willing to defend him against their own kind... and the same for Dymitr, when his kid sister insists on following her big brother on his hunt. (She really was a pointless character, existing to pop up like a fun house ghost whenever the story needed a little jump.) There are even sparks between Nico and Dymitr. I just did not buy the speed at which this happened, given the histories and the hurts and the many secrets that linger between them all, for all that the trio aren't a bad character mix ... especially when, while the personal relationship evolution is turbo-charged, the tale itself bogs down in painful backstories and stretches of dialog and dithering when the metaphoric clock is ticking.
The ending seems to forget a key threat, drawing out a confrontation and final twist and leaving the story in an odd place that didn't seem to really fit with what had come before and what must surely come after. I know this is the first of a duology, but it did not feel like a conclusion so much as a shrug. While it was reasonably well written and I enjoyed several aspects of the story, the whole just wasn't my cup of cocoa and didn't quite work for me.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Book Eaters (Sunyi Dean) - My Review
Discount Armageddon (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Strange Practice (Vivian Shaw) - My Review
Monday, December 1, 2025
November Site Update
A prolific month for reading, if another questionable one outside of reading... The main Brightdreamer Books site has been updated with the month's reviews. (Yes, I'm aware it's a day late. See also: questionable month outside of reading...)
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Pet (Awaeke Emezi)
Pet
Awaeke Emezi
Make Me a World
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Literary Fiction/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, the world was full of monsters: not goblins or demons or storybook beasts, but the kind who walk on two legs. They could be anywhere, and look like anything, and they spread their greed and hate and evil far and wide, until the people finally had enough. It took decades, and many things were done which are no longer spoken of, but at last the revolution succeeded. They dismantled the prisons and abolished the firearms that turned public places into potential massacre zones. They turned to proactive intervention rather than reactive punishment, embracing difference and diversity over bigotry and hatred. And the angels, the heroes of that era, still watch over the better world they created in the town of Lucille, one in which the public can at last breathe a sigh of relief, because the monsters are all gone.
At least, that's what the children are taught in school, and what their parents tell them.
Jam did not mean to bleed on her mother's latest unfinished painting. She just wanted to look at it, to ponder the strange, beastly figure of smoke and feathers and horns that had emerged on the canvas. When she accidentally cuts herself, a few drops of her blood somehow wake the creature, or rather open a portal to some strange other place through which it can step into her world. It tells her she can call it Pet, and declares that it is a hunter of monsters, summoned to this world because it is needed.
Surely it must be mistaken; Mom and Dad and all her teachers tell her that the monsters are gone and never coming back to Lucille. But it is quite insistent, and Jam begins to wonder. Would she even know what a monster looked like if she saw one? And could it be possible that one has been hiding in plain sight right in front of her and she just didn't know how to see?
REVIEW: Any book that opens with a prologue explaining its themes to the reader before they can have a chance to read and discover them for themselves is waving a red flag warning that the coming story is not going to tell me a tale but sell me a message. But I'd already given up on another audiobook for my workday and had a very specific window of time to fill, and this looked intriguing. Thus, I waded in.
The early parts have a lot of promise. It takes place in an unspecified place and time, either near future or alternate timeline, where the promise of progressive revolution has borne fruit. All the "monsters" who have warped society for too long, from the child predators to the overpowered monsters who have seized the reins of power at the highest echelons to strangle justice and turn a profit off poisoning the land and murdering countless people, have been cast down, the militarization of police and packing of prisons has ended, and even religious extremism has been nipped, with religion itself only vaguely discussed in school (though the public libraries are well stocked and well staffed and will offer anything to anyone who wishes to learn). Jam is transgender, her parents are different races, and her best friend/potential boyfriend Redemption's extended family includes a parental throuple. This is a future that's as close to an accepting, peaceful utopia as possible, though of course it's not perfect... and, as the book shows, it threatens to become a victim of its own success. Though Jam's and Redemption's parents, and of course the elder "angels" who fought for this society, remember the time before and the many guises of the monsters they overthrew, children no longer understand just how easy it is for terrible people to hide in plain sight. They don't know the warning signs, and when anyone does dare suggest that perhaps there are still dangers in the world, their elders refuse to acknowledge that monsters could ever return; after all, they sacrificed so much and did "hard things" to end the terrors, and they refuse to admit that this is not a battle that can be decisively won and forgotten about. When Jam accidentally wakes the being "Pet" (which may or may not be an angel), she, too, does not want to believe - especially when it tells her that the monster it is here to hunt is in Redemption's home. Her own parents deny the possibility so vehemently that Jam convinces herself that Pet is mistaken, or even lying. Yet Pet insists, while she grows conflicted, then denies any chance of trouble, only Pet insists....
You may sense a bit of repetition in the previous bits. While the early parts of the tale have a certain literary, surreal element - the peculiar being emerging from the painting with its slightly archaic and poetic speech, the way her parents react to its arrival, even the way neurodivergent and selectively mute Jam interacts with the world as much through energy and vibration as verbal or signed communication - it starts getting a little heavy-handed with its themes, and soon sinks into a holding pattern that keeps things stuck for far too long, where Pet insists that it needs to hunt and Jam needs to help it figure out where the monster is, while Jam refuses to take the threat seriously and doesn't really believe monsters are real anymore, only for Pet to once again repeat itself with some variant of "the hunt is the hunt" and "see the unseen" or some other entirely useless phrase or sentiment that fails to convince Jam to step up to a plate that needs to be stepped up to if the story's going to move forward, yet which she dithers about for far, far too long... and even when she does, the tale bogs down more with too much filler and not enough progress. At some point, it stopped being intriguing and started being tiresomely preachy and repetitious, before (slowly) building up to a (slow) confrontation and (slow) resolution, underlain with a religious subtext that felt a little out of place. By the end, my skull was fairly ringing from the sledgehammer blows driving its message home, plus few things irk me more than a sermon mislabeled as a story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Skellig (David Almond) - My Review
Wolfwood (Marianna Baer) - My Review
I Was a Teenage Fairy (Francesca Lia Block) - My Review
Awaeke Emezi
Make Me a World
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Literary Fiction/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, the world was full of monsters: not goblins or demons or storybook beasts, but the kind who walk on two legs. They could be anywhere, and look like anything, and they spread their greed and hate and evil far and wide, until the people finally had enough. It took decades, and many things were done which are no longer spoken of, but at last the revolution succeeded. They dismantled the prisons and abolished the firearms that turned public places into potential massacre zones. They turned to proactive intervention rather than reactive punishment, embracing difference and diversity over bigotry and hatred. And the angels, the heroes of that era, still watch over the better world they created in the town of Lucille, one in which the public can at last breathe a sigh of relief, because the monsters are all gone.
At least, that's what the children are taught in school, and what their parents tell them.
Jam did not mean to bleed on her mother's latest unfinished painting. She just wanted to look at it, to ponder the strange, beastly figure of smoke and feathers and horns that had emerged on the canvas. When she accidentally cuts herself, a few drops of her blood somehow wake the creature, or rather open a portal to some strange other place through which it can step into her world. It tells her she can call it Pet, and declares that it is a hunter of monsters, summoned to this world because it is needed.
Surely it must be mistaken; Mom and Dad and all her teachers tell her that the monsters are gone and never coming back to Lucille. But it is quite insistent, and Jam begins to wonder. Would she even know what a monster looked like if she saw one? And could it be possible that one has been hiding in plain sight right in front of her and she just didn't know how to see?
REVIEW: Any book that opens with a prologue explaining its themes to the reader before they can have a chance to read and discover them for themselves is waving a red flag warning that the coming story is not going to tell me a tale but sell me a message. But I'd already given up on another audiobook for my workday and had a very specific window of time to fill, and this looked intriguing. Thus, I waded in.
The early parts have a lot of promise. It takes place in an unspecified place and time, either near future or alternate timeline, where the promise of progressive revolution has borne fruit. All the "monsters" who have warped society for too long, from the child predators to the overpowered monsters who have seized the reins of power at the highest echelons to strangle justice and turn a profit off poisoning the land and murdering countless people, have been cast down, the militarization of police and packing of prisons has ended, and even religious extremism has been nipped, with religion itself only vaguely discussed in school (though the public libraries are well stocked and well staffed and will offer anything to anyone who wishes to learn). Jam is transgender, her parents are different races, and her best friend/potential boyfriend Redemption's extended family includes a parental throuple. This is a future that's as close to an accepting, peaceful utopia as possible, though of course it's not perfect... and, as the book shows, it threatens to become a victim of its own success. Though Jam's and Redemption's parents, and of course the elder "angels" who fought for this society, remember the time before and the many guises of the monsters they overthrew, children no longer understand just how easy it is for terrible people to hide in plain sight. They don't know the warning signs, and when anyone does dare suggest that perhaps there are still dangers in the world, their elders refuse to acknowledge that monsters could ever return; after all, they sacrificed so much and did "hard things" to end the terrors, and they refuse to admit that this is not a battle that can be decisively won and forgotten about. When Jam accidentally wakes the being "Pet" (which may or may not be an angel), she, too, does not want to believe - especially when it tells her that the monster it is here to hunt is in Redemption's home. Her own parents deny the possibility so vehemently that Jam convinces herself that Pet is mistaken, or even lying. Yet Pet insists, while she grows conflicted, then denies any chance of trouble, only Pet insists....
You may sense a bit of repetition in the previous bits. While the early parts of the tale have a certain literary, surreal element - the peculiar being emerging from the painting with its slightly archaic and poetic speech, the way her parents react to its arrival, even the way neurodivergent and selectively mute Jam interacts with the world as much through energy and vibration as verbal or signed communication - it starts getting a little heavy-handed with its themes, and soon sinks into a holding pattern that keeps things stuck for far too long, where Pet insists that it needs to hunt and Jam needs to help it figure out where the monster is, while Jam refuses to take the threat seriously and doesn't really believe monsters are real anymore, only for Pet to once again repeat itself with some variant of "the hunt is the hunt" and "see the unseen" or some other entirely useless phrase or sentiment that fails to convince Jam to step up to a plate that needs to be stepped up to if the story's going to move forward, yet which she dithers about for far, far too long... and even when she does, the tale bogs down more with too much filler and not enough progress. At some point, it stopped being intriguing and started being tiresomely preachy and repetitious, before (slowly) building up to a (slow) confrontation and (slow) resolution, underlain with a religious subtext that felt a little out of place. By the end, my skull was fairly ringing from the sledgehammer blows driving its message home, plus few things irk me more than a sermon mislabeled as a story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Skellig (David Almond) - My Review
Wolfwood (Marianna Baer) - My Review
I Was a Teenage Fairy (Francesca Lia Block) - My Review
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