Tom Bruno
Amazon Digital Services
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: From the depths of the southern Palmlands, where Gorgon queens rule over groves of chocolate more precious than gold, to the great City of Varo, whose money-minded inhabitants have invaded nearly every nook and cranny of the known world while inexplicably favoring a bland and mushroom-heavy diet, from the mountain-dwelling Cyclopes to the nearly-vanished Immortals, the Three Continents are teeming with diverse species, races, dangers, wonders... and flavors. Since his birth to a Shan-Li chef mother and wandering Varonian trader father, young Van's life has been shaped by foods local and exotic, catering to palates rustic and refined. Despite his mother's traditional menus, he becomes obsessed with finding new flavors and new recipes to sate his budding gourmand appetites - almost to the point of ignoring the people and places he holds most dear. His hungers could well spell his doom, as Van finds himself embarking on a long and dangerous journey far from his mother's kitchens into a world all too ready to devour the innocent.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: It isn't often one finds something completely different in fantasy. At its heart, Confessions of a Gourmand has many of the same ingredients one would find in most fantasy adventures: a boy with a missing father and protective mother, a coming-of-age journey filled with exotic wonders, and a world populated with all manner of cultures and races and histories. Bruno puts a fresh spin on this formula with Van's gourmand viewpoint. Every city, every culture new and old, emerging or extinct, takes on a distinctive flavor - literally - as the hero views their strengths and weaknesses through their taste buds. The recipes and discussions of meals (including delicacies, spices, preparation methods, and other sundry details) take on an almost Tolkienian depth, highlighting an important human obsession that often gets glossed over in world building. Not unlike Tolkien, I found my eyes glazing occasionally, as page after page of recipes and related trivia filled the narrative, alongside various character-building tangents that ultimately came to less than their allotted page-count would imply. Still, even though his sword is a kitchen knife and his shield a wok, Van is no less a worthy fantasy adventurer than any other. His recipes are his spellcraft, both endangering him and rescuing him from many a dire situation. Though there is no dark lord to defeat, no dragons to slay (save in a prologue outlining how to prepare the volatile and poisonous beasts for the dinner table), and no treasure or crown awaiting him at the end, he nevertheless manages to have a grand adventure. If the world itself often outshone the plot, if the humor occasionally tended to the absurd, and if Van wasn't always the most sympathetic of characters, I still enjoyed the tale.
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- Amazon DVD link
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