"A great stand alone fantasy"
Minor league California rocker Theo Vilmos feels he is at
the bottom of the food chain when matters turn worse when
he
loses his pregnant girlfriend. Thirty, alone, and his
music
going nowhere, Theo feels down. He decides to get away to
relook the direction of his life that seems to be in free
fall. At his mother's remote cabin, Theo finds an ancient
looking tome handwritten by his weird Uncle Eamon about
another realm, that of Faerie. Soon Theo is shocked to learn Faerie exists when the sprite
Applecore arrives at his abode. She escorts the reluctant
musician through the gate to a magical land that quickly
seems quite dismal to the visitor. War appears everywhere
so much so that Theo feels his home planet seems relatively
peaceful. While Theo begins to learn secrets about his
gene
pool, he falls in love, but this is a land in which life is
not precious so he must show caution to survive especially
when bombardier dragons attack. This stand-alone fantasy is a great satirizing of current
conditions on planet earth as seen through a looking glass
mirror. The story line is extremely dark and grim yet
often
humorous as the plot shreds anything and everything of
proud
filled boasts about our compassionate great society. Theo
is a fine character who serves as the center of the myriad
of subplots, but it is the cantankerous, nasty Applecore
who
steals the show with her tinkering and editing of words of
wisdom. A tad wordy, perhaps, but fans of Tad Williams,
which probably includes Jonathan Swift, will appreciate
this
cutting faerie tale. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted May 16, 2003
|
