Under the Smokestrewn Sky
The Up-and-Under series, Book 4
A. Deborah Baker
Tordotcom
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When Avery and Zib climbed over the wall that shouldn't have been there into the forest that couldn't exist, they were strangers. Now, after traveling the bizarre realms of the Up-and-Under along the fickle Improbable Road in search of the Impossible City and the way home, they have become friends. Together with the one-time Crow Girl (now the near-stranger Soleil since she reclaimed her name), the drowned girl Niamh, and Jack the boy made of a flock of jackdaws, they have at last arrived at the fiery realm of the Queen of Wands: the missing queen who should be in the City, but has vanished without a trace, leaving a dangerous power vacuum that the other realms might go to war to fill. For all the hardships and dangers they've endured, Avery and Zib are still together, and now they're surely almost to the end of their strange adventures and peculiar trials. Wild-hearted Zib will miss the place and their new friends, while Avery cannot wait to get back to a world where people don't become flocks of birds and roads stay just where you left them when you turn away, but both are looking forward to going home to the families that surely miss them. All they have to do is figure out where the Queen went and get her back to her tower in the City before war comes. Considering what they've been through to get this far, it should almost be easy. But the Up-and-Under, much like the real world, does not always play fair or offer happy endings. Just because they've come this far is no guarantee that they will succeed, and just because the two children arrived together is no guarantee that they'll depart the same way - or at all.
REVIEW: The conclusion to the four-part Up-and-Under series, a spinoff of/tie-in to author Seanan McGuire's horror-tinged alchemical fantasy Middlegame (once a standalone, now a series) wraps up the story of Avery and Zib's adventures, as well as those of their traveling companions. As in previous entries, the Up-and-Under is both reminiscent of classic portal fantasy worlds like Oz or Wonderland and a dark reflection of those worlds. Even the kindest characters they meet almost invariably have hidden agendas and shadows just beneath the surface, and the world itself contains levels of threat and menace that are never long forgotten. Every place they've visited, every King and Queen and Page they've encountered, has great power and great capacity to harm as well as help. When they do prove helpful, it's almost always because doing so helps themselves in some manner. Avery and Zib, naturally, have had to learn to work together despite their differences, each changed by their journeys... Zib more than Avery, as the girl openly embraces the slantwise logic of the Up-and-Under. As before, there are strong elements of alchemy and elemental symbolism, such as that found in Tarot decks, throughout (part of the tie-in features; in the world of Middlegame, "Baker" was actually a practicing dark alchemist who loaded her popular children's stories with occult subtexts and hidden codes), as well as marvelous descriptions and turns of phrase that evoke the spirit of old, beloved tales. With so many adventures and backstories and characters with conflicting motivations from the previous three books, this final stretch of the journey can feel tangled, especially if it's been a while since one has read the previous three adventures, and a few elements didn't feel like they paid off like they should have. The very ending felt abrupt, as though the story weren't quite over yet and rushed to wrap up, while the "author" afterword tied it all back into Middlegame's universe.
Overall, I enjoyed this outing, demonstrating yet again the many talents of prolific author Seanan McGuire.
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Over the Woodward Wall (A. Deborah Baker) - My Review
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