August Site Update

The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.

In other news, I'm hoping to relocate site hosts this month, so there may be some hiccups related to that. (Nothing at all against my current host, but I just need something a little more budget-friendly, and I've basically been paying for a luxury SUV when all I really need is a motor scooter.)

Lost in the Valley of Death (Harley Rustad)

Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas
Harley Rustad
Harper
Nonfiction, Biography/Survival/True Stories
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: For most of his life, Justin Alexander Shetler was driven to test himself against the wilderness, always pushing to climb higher and hike further and endure harsher and more primitive conditions. He was a restless soul, always searching for a connection or transformative experience that would give him peace and meaning, which always seemed to be just beyond the next bend or over the next hill. Justin chronicled his travels on social media, garnering a devoted following, even as he often dropped off the grid for more extreme adventures. As with so many restless souls seeking adventure and enlightenment, he eventually found himself in India, a land long elevated to mythological status by outsiders. Here, in the wild and nearly lawless hinterlands of the Parvati Valley, Justin hoped to discover the spiritual answers and peace that had always eluded him. He found a cave to live in, and a sadhu, or holy man, to teach him. Then, in late summer of 2016, the 35-year-old adventurer announced online that he was going on a trek to a holy lake high in the mountains in hopes of a transcendental experience. If he didn't come back, he told his audience with a winking emoji, don't look for him.
Those were the last words he would ever share.
As his days of silence grew to weeks and months, family and friends around the world began to worry, and realized something was very wrong. The Parvati Valley, after all, is not just known for its spiritual sites and natural beauty, but for a thriving (and illegal) cannabis trade and numerous unexplained disappearances. The sadhu he was last known to be associated with had a less-than-holy reputation, and some were concerned by how Justin seemed so enraptured by the man. And the local police were unmotivated to look into the whereabouts of yet another foreigner who was most likely just there for the high-quality hash and had probably fallen afoul of a trafficker, if he hadn't just slipped off a trail into the ever-hungry Parvati River. As overseas efforts to search out the truth coalesced, many reflected on Justin's life and the path that led him to India, and if that path suggested a way for him to still be alive when all evidence suggested otherwise...

REVIEW: Yet another random audiobook selection, this is the story of a man living a life without guardrails who seemingly finally took one risk too many. Rustad chronicles his life from a restless, nomadic, and troubled childhood where wilderness schools and programs were his only refuge to the man who never quite grew up or figured out how to settle or find peace, unwilling or unable to form deeper human connections while his inner turmoil and unanswered spiritual questions tormented him. He tried and discarded numerous spiritual teachings and personas, none seeming to offer what he needed or wanted, never at home in his own skin or life. Even his online persona was curated to present an image of himself that was more truth-adjacent than unvarnished reality, which ultimately hindered efforts to search for him, as too many believed he was indestructible or had just hared off on an even more extreme adventure than he'd started on. There is a faint hint of a possibility that maybe that is what he did - as more than one person pointed out, if anyone was capable of cutting all ties with civilization and living completely off the grid and out of contact, it was Justin Alexander - but Occam's razor suggests a more straightforward and ultimately tragic end, for all that no body was ever found. Along the way, Rustad explores how and why so many people seem compelled to turn to the "other" culture, or rather their outsider's distorted view of that culture, in search of greater meaning: for instance, appropriating sweat lodges and vision quests and mishmashed teachings from various Native American cultures without regard for the real roots and nuances and meanings of those rituals and teachings, or even honoring where they originated. India may well be the ultimate target of this mentality and has been for centuries via rhapsodic travel writing and literature, transforming the country in "Western" minds into something so exotic and steeped in spirituality and larger than life that there is an actual (unofficial) term for visitors who become overwhelmed and experience mental health episodes: India Syndrome. (The fact that there are certain native plants and drugs with potentially devastating effects, sometimes used by the unscrupulous to facilitate crimes, also may play into some outsiders' ideas that simply setting foot in India is enough to trigger a transformative spiritual experience.) Something about India exerts an inexorable pull on certain people, many of whom never return home for various reasons (not always accidents or foul play; every year, local authorities round up dozens of foreigners who simply chose to overstay their visas, unable to bring themselves to leave).
There are times when Rustad seems to be repeating himself, and later on he reveals some pretty important information on young Justin's formative years that might explain some of his unresolved pain and unprocessed traumas, the holes he was forever trying to fill, which casts his extreme life and probable death in a whole new light. He also ventures into the weeds a bit discussing other unresolved disappearances in the Parvati Valley that foreshadow Justin's fate, even as he offers a glimpse of just what it was about India in general and the Parvati Valley in particular that was so alluring. Ultimately, though, Rustad does a decent job summing up a man determined to live as full a life as possible and push himself as far as he could go, always hoping that the next adventure would be the one to give his life meaning and find peace, for all that he often seemed to be chasing phantoms so ill-defined he couldn't even say for certain just what "meaning" or "peace" would look like if he glimpsed them. One can only hope, whatever happened to him, that he found that peace he was searching for in the wilds of the Himalayas.

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The Adventurer's Son (Roman Dial) - My Review
Gone to the Woods (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
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Eagle Drums (Nasugraq Rainey Hopson)

Eagle Drums
Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson
Roaring Brook Press
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In the long-ago days, when people rarely gathered and never trusted each other, the boy Piŋa lives with his mother and father and the memories of two elder brothers, vanished on the trip to the mountain for obsidian flakes. Now, he must make the trek, for his family needs the tools they knap with the black stone if they are to harvest and prepare enough food for the long northern winter. On his way, however, he encounters a great golden eagle god, who offers a choice: follow, or die as his brothers died. Fearful, the boy agrees.
Thus begins a long and arduous journey to the very peak of the world. The eagle gods have many lessons to teach the young hunter, lessons of the strange rhythmic speaking called song and the odd movements called dance and the peculiar stretched-hide hoops called drums, all leading the the greatest challenge of all. If he learns well, he might be allowed to leave - and if he fails, he will be killed.

REVIEW: First off, I apologize for probable bunglings of Native spellings; I often have trouble getting special characters and accent marks to appear properly in Blogger, even with special notations and copy-paste commands.
This story is a retelling of a Native Arctic tale about the origins of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast and the birth of culture among humans, set in that old story world of animal spirits and gods taking human form at will. Before the boy's journey, people are shown as mistrustful of each other, only rarely meeting long enough to trade and never coming together in friendship. Then Savik the eagle comes to young Piŋa on the mountain with his unusual demand - nothing nearly so polite as a request. The fact that the boy's two brothers faced the same choice and did not survive is more than enough to convince him to follow Savik, though every step takes him away from his parents and the only home he has ever known. The eagles never become anything like friends; not a moment goes by where the boy does not understand just how other they are, how dangerous they can be, and how little they really understand his kind. Still, they seem determined to teach him these peculiar lessons, though Piŋa cannot imagine what purpose they might serve. It's only later that he understands just what the eagles are commanding him to do: change the world, or at least the human world, a gift that isn't entirely altruistic in nature but which he has no choice but to attempt. He does not come to this knowledge easily, or learn without struggles or setbacks, and his best often doesn't seem nearly enough to please the stern old woman who leads the eagle clan. Nevertheless, he perseveres, knowing that to do otherwise is to leave his parents truly childless and bereft for the rest of their lives, without so much as a body to tell them what happened to him.
Characterization may not be especially deep or complex, but it is ultimately a legend, a fireside tale with a little extra flesh added to enrich the sense of setting, and works for what it is. The ending twist is a little bit telegraphed, but satisfactory. The whole is an interesting glimpse at a Native culture and legend I don't see much of in my fiction.

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A Snake Falls to Earth (Darcie Little Badger) - My Review
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Age of Death (Michael J. Sullivan)

Age of Death
The Legends of the First Empire series, Book 5
Michael J. Sullivan
Riyria Enterprises, LLC
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: As another winter comes, the war between the humans and the elves looks more hopeless than ever. With the human's only trained mystic Suri a captive of Lothian - probably even now being tortured into giving up the secrets of the "dragon" that has defended the army - and the desperate expedition to rescue her lost in the Swamp of Ith, it seems only a matter of time before the Rhunes and their "traitor" elven allies are swept from the land. In this dark hour, Malcolm finally returns... but he brings little hope or comfort to a people on the verge of the ultimate defeat.
In Phyre, the land of death, eight people still struggle to follow the thin trail left by Malcolm's cryptic words that might turn the tide of the war - but things have gone terribly wrong in the afterlife, threatening their journey. When they draw the unwanted attention of the gods lording over Rel and the depths of Nifrel, doom seems all but certain...

REVIEW: Yes, I just reviewed the forth book about a week ago. I did not like being left on a cliffhanger, so I checked Libby for the next audiobook... only to find that the only copy available through my library was an e-book (except for an abridged "graphic audio" edition, and I avoid abridged editions if I can at all help it). So this is technically the first book in the series that I read in print. Whether that affected my reaction or not, I cannot say, but I did start to detect a certain stretched feeling, which makes me wonder if this "second trilogy" in the series really needed three full books to tell its story.
On the plus side, the pacing and characterization continues more or less at the same pace it has been, as new threats are revealed and twists and revelations unfold. The two realms of death that Tressa, Brin, Roan, Gifford, and the rest visit are intriguing takes on familiar tropes; the deeper realm of "Nifrel" isn't so much a place for the worst people, but those who are too ambitious and greedy in some aspect to settle for the more peaceful but undeniably duller ordinary afterlife of Rel, which is mostly like the living world only without death or hunger or other inconveniences; Nifrel, by contrast, is a chaotic fiery chasm of endless battles and repeated deaths. Nor are afterlives segregated by races, even if only one god presides over each realm; elves, dwarves, humans, and even goblins and others can be found in any realm that suits their soul's disposition. Just where each soul in the adventuring party "deserves" to be creates some inner tensions, and more than one pairing discovers that their permanent afterlives (assuming Malcolm spoke truly and they'll be able to return to life after their trek through all three realms of death) may not be the happily ever after they anticipated. During their journey, they encounter lost loved ones and relatives, as well as ancestors and cultural heroes, and have the expected perils and tight scrapes and the odd betrayal. Along the way, Keeper Brin finally works out some of Malcolm's secrets, which make her doubt the man's intentions even more, but they have little choice but to continue following his breadcrumb trail now that they've literally committed their souls to its completion.
In the land of the living, not too much happens on the human side of things. Persephone and Nyphron react to their ongoing stalemate in different ways, but have little to actually do. On the elven side of the river, Suri finds some unexpected allies, and Imalya progresses her plan to challenge an increasingly insane Lothian for the Forest Throne, while the mysterious figure Trilos still lurks and makes cryptic comments; more backstory on him, the creator gods of the races, and Malcolm is filled in around the edges, though I admit to some name overload here and won't pretend I'm keeping everyone straight in my head. And, yes, the spoiled prince Manwyndule continues to be whiny and spoiled and cluelessly self-absorbed.
Where this installment lost its half star was in some continued and excessive wallowing by the characters - rolling in their helplessness and miseries and such without advancing the plot or actually attempting to change the thing about themselves or their situations that's causing them so much distress - and the fact that, once again, Sullivan ends on a cliffhanger, which is a trick you can only pull so many times before the reader starts mistrusting you. Since there is only one more volume in the series, and since I'm still enjoying it more than not, I'll be reading on, but I'll probably take a longer break between installments this time.

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Once There Was (Kiyash Monsef)

Once There Was
The Once There Was series, Book 1
Kiyash Monsef
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG/YA Fantasy
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: Marjan's life has never been complete, not since her mother passed when she was eight years old. Always, there's been a sense that something is missing inside her. Now, with her Iranian-born father recently murdered in their own home, she feels even more broken, full of anger and crushed by a life that's going all wrong. His sudden death left her more or less in charge of his struggling veterinary clinic, but it was his life beyond the office that always mystified her, the strange phone calls and sudden trips that took him away for days, even a week or more at a time... and the way he'd often look at her, as even her friends sometimes look at her, as though seeing what she has felt: that missing thing she cannot name, cannot place, but which sits in the way of her life.
Then she gets a strange visitor and a phone call, very much like the one her father always received, which comes with plane tickets and directions to an estate in England - but why would anyone want a high school sophomore with no formal veterinary training? And is she really supposed to believe the patient is a griffin? Amazingly, there really is an ailing griffin... and, more amazingly, when she lays her hands on it, she feels a sudden, strange rush of sensations - as if she's touching its mind, feeling its pains and glimpsing its memories and thoughts.
Like her father before her, Marjan learns that she bears a rare genetic gift that enables her to connect with and treat beasts that most of the world believes to be imaginary. But the elite circle of people who know of these animals proves to be far more dangerous than she can imagine. Now she, too, is up to her neck, and in over her head, in a hidden world she never knew existed, among the very people who might well be responsible for her father's murder.

REVIEW: This could easily have been a simple, shallow story of a grief-stricken girl discovering a family secret and a hidden world of magical creatures. The characters could have been basic stereotypes and stock bin placeholders acting out an obvious plot extended by bouts of groanworthy stupidity. It could have had a childishly simple Moral and Lesson that pulled its punches. Once There Was is none of these things, consistently rising beyond the easy and obvious choices and following through on every emotional swing.
Rooted on Marjan's Iranian-American heritage and storytelling traditions from around the world, it starts with a girl struck numb by the second major loss in a life too full of loss for her to begin to process any of it. Her father was an often-unhappy and complicated man, more complicated than she ever expected, and though he told his daughter stories at night and welcomed her at work, he kept much hidden from her. Marjan grew up not knowing much about his past or his Iranian culture outside the stories and a few video calls with his relatives back in the old country, but doesn't realize just how much he left out until she meets the strange young woman who draws her into The Fells, the "family" of people who keep tabs on known magical animals. Marjan isn't entirely unprepared, though, because one of the many stories her father told her was the long-ago tale of a girl who rescued a unicorn from a hunter's trap and was "rewarded" with a mark and unusual blessing. In this way, the author avoids the usual trope of a character repeatedly denying the obvious and having to be spoon fed literally everything about the hidden world they discover, and Marjan is smart enough to realize the connection to Dad's tales without needing a two-by-four to the cranium. Still, there's only so much bedside stories can do to prepare a girl for a revelation like that, and the sudden burden of responsibility that lands on her shoulders by essentially inheriting a job she is ill-prepared to handle; just feeling that an animal is in pain doesn't definitively diagnose a problem or suggest a course of treatment, and knowing how much an animal is suffering without knowing what to do about it is its own sort of painful burden. Still, The Fells and their clients offer a financial lifeline to her and her father's struggling/failing veterinary practice; she knows she should probably sell it, as her dad's accountant tells her, but does her best to keep dancing one step ahead of creditors while holding onto this last piece of him and his legacy. It's a lot for one girl to deal with, and she realistically stumbles and scrambles even as she finds reserves of strength and ability under pressure.
As she becomes more and more involved with the world of magical creatures, she finds new acquaintances and possible allies, both in simply surviving and in maybe doing what law enforcement seems incapable of: solving her father's peculiar murder. It's clear almost from the start, to the reader and Marjan, that his hidden life as veterinarian to magical animals is almost certainly behind the violent death he suffered, but who did it? Or why? Could it be the Fell family, which claims to be interested in protecting the magical animals and yet also auctions them off to the "most deserving" bidder (who may not always be the most deserving, but usually has deep pockets)? The billionaire tech magnate with an extensive private collection and grand plans for a better future? Just reading that, you might guess; I know I did. But this story is never that easy or obvious, and whatever you're guessing is probably not correct. Everyone has complex motivations for what they do, and it's never so clear cut as flat out "good guys" and "bad guys". Marjan learns that even the father she loved wasn't always a great guy, and that she herself is not above morally gray territory. Even the magical beasts are rarely entirely good or evil, not in any way obligated to conform to idealized or moralized versions of themselves for the sake of humans.
The story moves well from the start, with intriguing characters and interesting creatures and nice emotional complexity all around. The ending, naturally, leaves the door open for sequels, but wraps up well enough it can work as a standalone, giving Marjan some needed closure on a number of matters even as she must accept that she never will truly know everything there was to know about those she loved the most, that there are sides to everyone, even her best friends, that aren't for her to see. I tried to think of a reason not to give it a full five stars in the ratings, and couldn't come up with a single one. I'm looking forward to the next book already, whenever it appears.

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