Perhaps the best part of this particular story, in my opinion, is that while the children do manage to have their adventure, learning strength and cunning and self-reliance along the way, we also get to see their parents and other adults working desperately to save them. This was a refreshing change from all the classic fantasy novels where the children save themselves (and sometimes the world) while the inattentive adults barely notice. This structural difference seems in keeping with the story’s thematic focus on community—many of the difficulties in the book arise from various separate communities and their disparate needs and desires; an apt theme for a story with strong political elements.
As with Westmark, the children quickly get caught up in larger political issues beyond their own personal needs and interests. Unlike Westmark, this book is certainly speculative fiction, as it’s set two hundred years in the future. The world has changed significantly in that time, as might be expected, and as is indicated to the reader in brief comments from the children. There are also some interesting supernatural elements, but they have more of a miraculous flavor than a magical one. They are intimately connected to the living religion of the country, with ancestor-possessions (generally quite helpful), the presence of various gods, and an overall sense of Zimbabwe’s collective soul. They remind me a little of magical realistic writing in that regard. Overall, the language, terrific details, and warm humor of the story help to carry the reader along, making the book almost impossible to put down. Highly recommended.
Overall, there are some strong stories in the Firebird line, and we can expect more terrific tales to come. In Summer 2002, they’ll be publishing Robin McKinley’s charming Spindle’s End (a Sleeping Beauty retelling), along with The Outlaws of Sherwood. They’ll also be publishing the rest of the Westmark trilogy, and Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel. In Fall 2002, we get the aforementioned I Am Morgan LeFay from Nancy Springer, along with The Hex Witch of Seldom. We also get two of the wonderful Charles de Lint’s novels—The Dreaming Place, and The Riddle of the Wren, along with Laurel Winter’s Growing Wings, which will be new in paperback, and which has been receiving heaps of praise in hardcover. Hopefully this will be part of a renaissance in young adult speculative fiction. Fingers crossed.
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Mary Anne Mohanraj is Editor-in-Chief of Strange Horizons.
A Rare Gift: Harlequin Valentine by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton
Reviewed by Erin Donahoe
2/11/02
Neil Gaiman and John Bolton have come together to create a graphic novel that deserves to be given as a Valentine’s Day gift. Harlequin Valentine is a beautifully illustrated book, telling a modernized version of the commedia dell’arte relationship between Harlequin and Columbine. Gaiman’s words depict a strange and wonderful kind of love story, which is enriched by Bolton’s photo-realistic paintings.
The tale begins on February 14th, when Harlequin nails his heart to the door of Missy, a woman he has decided is his Columbine. While Missy sees the heart, and removes it from her door to place it in a plastic sandwich baggy, she cannot see the capering Harlequin, who stalks her footsteps as she tries to discover the source of this rather unusual Valentine’s Day present. The subsequent events revolve around what Missy does with Harlequin’s heart now that she has it, while Harlequin follows her around and falls ever more deeply in love. Harlequin is portrayed as capricious, whimsical, and romantic, while Missy, his Columbine, is practical, realistic, and no-nonsense. As we are led through the measures of their adventures, the characters dance through a world of muted greys and browns, where Harlequin is by far the brightest spot of color.
Gaiman originally published this narrative as a short story in the program book of the 1999 World Horror Convention, and it was later published in both The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: Volume Eleven. Gaiman’s grasp of descriptive language is that of an iron fist, but his finesse and subtlety are the velvet glove, as he deftly combines fancies from the long tradition of the commedia with the mundane sparkle of everyday reality. It is a tale ripe for illustration, and John Bolton plucks the fruit by skillfully matching Gaiman’s words with his lavish and colorful paintings. His realistic approach to the work helps to tie the paintings to the words, and though Missy’s coat is more black than the blue I had imagined it, and she cannot put the hat pin from Harlequin into her “lapel” since she is wearing a tank-top, these are very minor details in a large set of stunningly rich images. The book is dedicated to Lisa Snellings, a sculptor with an eye to the elegantly macabre and a penchant for harlequin figures, and it is easy to see a touch of her influence in Bolton’s vision of Harlequin.
This story is a bizarre and tragic romance, in which Harlequin sees the characters of the Pantomime in many of the people he spies. The British Pantomime consisted of several stock characters whose relationships were defined by convention, varying only slightly from tale to tale, or more precisely, from play to play. First, of course, there is Missy, whom Harlequin sees as his Columbine. Later he finds characters who he believes are the Doctor and Pantaloon, and he comforts himself with that knowledge and treats each accordingly. There are several mentions of Pierott, another of the Pantomime archetypes, who was often hopelessly in love with Columbine, and unsuccessful in his pursuit of her. At one point Harlequin comments to himself that he is feeling “almost pierrotish, which is a poor thing for a harlequin to be.”
Those who are unfamiliar with the sixteenth century commedia dell’arte and the later British Pantomime (or Harlequinade) will not feel left out, despite the importance of these dramatic forms to the story, because Gaiman gives each reference enough context to make its significance clear. For those who want to reread and delve deeper into the meaning of the text, the author has provided a three page guide to the Harlequinade, which includes a history of the Pantomime, descriptions of the role of several archetypes, and more of Bolton’s splendid artwork. The book concludes with a beautifully written story about Bolton and a short biography of Gaiman, which I shall choose to believe are true.
Neil Gaiman has a gift when it comes to telling the short story which I have not seen come through in his novels. His shorter works, like the passing of a dream, forgotten as we awaken on a cold winter morning, leave us with a lingering sense of the mystical possibilities tucked away in dark corners of the world. Those possibilities hide between the pages of Harlequin Valentine, waiting to leap, laughing and capering, into the mind of an unwary reader. For those who enjoyed the Sandman series, it is also a pleasure to see Gaiman’s work once more realized in graphic form. Some might argue that his greatest gift is the ability to communicate his visions so clearly that an artist can successfully complement with a brush or pencil what Gaiman draws with words.
Between Gaiman’s storytelling and Bolton’s lush, even lavish paintings, this book is nearly too magnificent for words. It should make it out in time for Valentine’s Day gift giving, and is being published in a lovely forty-page hardcover. If you like tales of the fanciful and the horrific then this is definitely a book for you. You may devour it in under an hour, but you’ll be digesting it for years to come.
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Erin Donahoe currently resides in the hills of Appalachia with a black bundle of cat dander named Sierra. She has had several poems accepted for publication, and plans to Dominate the World by 2003. Erin’s previous publications in Strange Horizons can be found in our Archive. Visit her web site for more about her.
Keith Hartman’s Gumshoe Gorilla: Take One Gay Gumshoe, One Wiccan PI, and Five Clones …
Reviewed by Wendy Pearson
2/18/02
“Did you ever see that old tv show, the one with the gorilla in a trench coat?” Of course you didn’t and neither did I, since the gorilla gumshoe, Monk Malone, is only a character in a tv show invented by the fertile imagination of novelist Keith Hartman. Gumshoe Gorilla is the second novel by Hartman dealing with this particular vision of a near future USA in which various interest groups, from fundamentalist Christians to gays and lesbians to the Cherokee Nation, are at each other’s throats. The Cherokee want their land back, the fundamentalists want the world to conform to their wishes, the tv moguls want ratings, the stage mothers want publicity, and the capitalists, of course, are in it for the money. What the gorilla wants is an interesting question.
Of course, the gorilla’s not so much a feature in the book as a spectre, turning up in gay Private Investigator Drew Parker’s dreams to make Humphrey Bogart style comments about the state of Drew’s various investigations. There’s also a dead transgendered Cherokee shaman with an interesting dress sense and a surviving husband who is convinced that Drew is his late wife’s heir, even though the dresses are several sizes too small. And that’s all before we get to the witch: Drew’s Wiccan partner, Jen. One of the wicked ironies of Hartman’s very funny novel is that it’s really Drew who has the better connection to the world of the supernatural, despite Jen’s Tarot cards, herbs, and Wiccan books.