The Thief on the Winged Horse, by Kate Mascarenhas (Head of Zeus) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review previously appeared in TQF69 (April 2021).

This is a charming novel set in a slightly fantastical presentish day, telling a story of sexism, betrayal, family and creative ethics. The best enchanted dolls you can buy are those of Kendricks Workshop, an Oxford family business founded in 1820 which guards its secrets so carefully that they don’t even let the female members of the family learn them all. “The women do interiors. They’ve a knack for that, because they tidy homes in real life.” Only the men may practice sorcery, imbuing their dolls with the ability to inspire specific feelings, such as Heady Optimism or Bucolic Bliss. This is a particular bother to Persephone Kendrick, stuck working in their shop and desperate to do more. Larkin is a floppy-haired young man who arrives on their eyot, a 1.6 km-long river island lying between the Thames and the Cherwell, on which a hundred families live in cottages and toil in workrooms. He claims to be descended from a long-lost branch of the family. Despite doubts as to whether this is true, the head of the family gives Larkin a job, the job Persephone always wanted, and the novel explores the consequences of this decision. I enjoyed this book very much – it reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones, albeit without the bits that make your head spin, and with a rather rude bit here and there. Persephone was an appealingly grumpy hero, and I was rooting for her throughout. I did wonder why their world was so similar to ours, with such magic in it, but perhaps the effects of the dolls were not always so strong. With luck a sequel will be forthcoming and such questions might be answered. Stephen Theaker ****

The Sea Inside Me by Sarah Dobbs (Unthank Books) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #284 (November–December 2019).

In a nation traumatised by a series of terrorist attacks on primary schools, people just can’t cope. So an experiment is going on in Newark-by-the-Sea. When a crime is committed, both criminal and victim have their minds wiped of the incident, the goal being to lessen the criminality of the former and the fear of the latter.

Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay (William Morrow) | Review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Shut up! You’re getting too philosophical and esoteric. No wait… tell me more. Experimental horror collection sprouts a spectrum of reactions.

In “It Won’t Go Away”, one of the more impressive entries in Paul Tremblay’s sometimes brilliant and sometimes baffling Growing Things and Other Stories, the protagonist discovers strange dark areas on photos of a horror writer friend who recently committed suicide. This protagonist, also a writer, begins to extract and rearrange these black spots. 

Similarly, Tremblay’s inaugural short story collection gives readers odd, difficult-to-interpret dark spots. It challenges the reader to pull out excerpts, to twist them, to place them next to others. Sometimes, the beginnings of a picture emerge. Other times, the reader is left with a bunch of dark areas. 

In his story notes at the back of the volume, Tremblay doesn’t offer much in terms of interpretation but rather reveals what inspired the stories. This reminds one of the irritating creative writing student who says, “It means whatever you think it means.” 

These stories refuse to give clear-cut answers – the author even refers to himself as Mr Ambiguity in one story. This strategy leads to entries that vacillate from refreshing and thought-provoking to rambling and annoying. Often, Tremblay leads readers to think the story is going one way but then pulls the carpet from under them.

Without its forerunner The Cabin at the End of the World, this collection would barely make it through the front door of William Morrow. Some stories, reading like commercials for men’s cologne, leave the reader completely in the dark. Others are pontificating and cumbersome. “Notes from the Dog Walkers”, for instance, is written as a series of notes left by dog walkers at a man’s house. What starts as cute reports devolves into hulking paragraphs of self-indulgent, meandering rants that stitch together random thoughts.

The concluding story, “The Thirteenth Temple”, which resurrects sisters Merry and Marjorie from Tremblay’s innovative 2016 possession novel A Head Full of Ghosts, gets lost in a miasma of repetition and vagueness. 

Despite striking out in some cases, the collection does offer some winners – several stories were so intriguing that I read them twice. One of the best entries, the Hell Boy-inspired “Her Red Right Hand,” is a beautiful exploration of the grieving process. When Gemma’s mother dies, her father turns into a sulking, drunken mess. He often retreats to his bedroom, and he says things out of anger. The girl spends time near a well, where she confronts a goblin who degrades her and, interestingly, has her father’s voice. The girl’s drawings start to create a new reality at the well. This story exemplifies the power of art in overcoming inner demons, expressed in this case as an outer goblin. 

Another engrossing offering is “The Teacher,” in which a beloved high school history teacher exposes his students to “special lessons”, one of which is a paused video of a preschool boy sailing through the air toward a wall after being thrown by his teacher. As the weeks progress, the teacher slightly advances the frame, causing the suspended boy to get closer to the wall. The image captures what Tremblay is doing with most of these stories – showing people on the brink of disaster and encouraging several possible interpretations.

“The Getaway”, ostensibly about four men gradually disappearing while fleeing a crime scene, turns out to be a commentary on the repercussions of neglectful parenting. 

In “Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport”, a man reflects on photographs from a boyhood family vacation in Dennisport, Massachusetts. Most of the photos are innocuous, but the narrator gradually reveals more about his mysterious father until the story ends with a surprising revelation.

“Our Town’s Monster”, one of the entries I read twice, intrigues despite its lack of clarity. A realtor showing a home to a dull, yet attractive couple nonchalantly reveals that a monster lives in a nearby swamp. A centenarian who is supposed to be (but isn’t really) the last teacher at a one-room schoolhouse is perceived as a kind of monster. A boy attempts to frighten his ultra-philosophical younger brother at a graveyard. The brother, immersed in his extremely violent video games, isn’t having it. Tremblay seems to be commenting on the human tendency to be so wrapped up in our own issues that we don’t see the monsters right in front of us.

When I was in elementary school, I did an experiment in which I placed the same kinds of seeds in separate pots and fed each one a different liquid (e.g. water, milk, coffee, tea). While some plants rose quicker than I expected, others never even broke through the soil. In Growing Things and Other Stories, Paul Tremblay feeds each horror story with a different elixir to inspire several questions: What is a monster? When, if ever, will it surface? Or has it already surfaced? Unfortunately, all that experimentation suffers from a fair amount of muddiness.—Douglas J. Ogurek ****

Ormeshadow, by Priya Sharma (Tordotcom) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review previously appeared in TQF69 (April 2021).

Bookish boy Gideon and his parents John and Clare are forced by reduced circumstances to leave Bath and return to the family sheep farm. Bath, in Gideon’s view, had been a city of graceful townhouses, where children played with hoops and oil lamps hung like magic lanterns. The children of Ormeshadow, on the other hand, stare at him in baleful silence. The village gets its name from the legend that it was built atop a dragon, but don’t read this expecting The Dragon Griaule. It’s a historical drama, tinged by the possibility of fantasy towards the end. The family farm is run by John’s resentful brother, who is far from happy that his private secretary of a brother has returned, and his children are just as aggressive: they attack Gideon the first time they are left alone with him. Tragedy will result from these wildly different families sharing a single home. I thought this was a well-written book, and the family drama rang true, though a more overtly fantastical story would have been more to my taste. I liked that the chapters had proper titles, which seems to be quite rare in fiction these days, and fellow Richard Herring fans will be interested to learn that a certain amount of stone-clearing is involved. Stephen Theaker ****

Kalki 2898 AD | review by Stephen Theaker

The last time I saw Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone in a film together, he was complaining about constipation and she was playing his long-suffering daughter, in the charming romantic comedy Piku. This time the stakes are even bigger, as is the budget – this is reportedly the most expensive Indian film ever made. Bachchan plays Ashwatthama, a character from the ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata. In one of several spectacular flashbacks we see his character in battle, firing an arrow of light into a far-away woman’s pregnant belly. For this crime he is cursed by Krishna to live forever, his wounds never healing, until the time when Krishna is due to be reborn, as Vishnu’s tenth incarnation, the Kalki of the title.

An animated title sequence then sweeps us through all the cruelties of our history and into a ruined, drought-stricken future. The rest of the world is dead and the last drop of water in the Ganges will soon be gone. Padukone’s character has no name at first, just a serial number: SUM-80. At the end of the world, few women are fertile, and those with potential are taken to a lab for implantation. If they were being used for breeding, that would be bad enough, but the women and babies are being juiced mid-pregnancy to produce a life-extending serum for a wizened dictator, the Baron Harkonnen-ish Supreme Yaskin (Kamal Haasan). SUM-80 is hiding her pregnancy, not knowing her baby might be the reincarnation of Vishnu predicted six thousand years before.

The third main protagonist and his robot were introduced in a fun little computer-animated prequel on Amazon Prime, B&B: Bujji and Bhairava, which was my first clue that the film wouldn’t be as dour as it looked from the trailer. Bhairava, played by Telugu star Prabhas of Baahubali fame, is a beefy, cheeky Han Solo type, if Han didn’t have Chewbacca to act as his conscience. Living in Kasi, formerly Varanasi, the world’s last and first city, he is a bounty hunter, desperate to earn his way into the floating Complex, where the rich live in luxury. A flashback shows him sneaking in for the film’s one song and dance number before being caught and kicked out. In the cartoon and film, we see Bhairava do a bit of bounty hunting and fighting, before eventually getting dragged against his will into the main storyline. (He’s not on screen anywhere near as much as one might expect.)

I was looking forward very much to this film, ever since I saw the trailer, and it was just as enjoyable as I expected, especially after the interval, when it took off the handbrake and slammed down hard on the pedal. Like some other Indian blockbusters I’ve watched recently (for example the brilliant Leo, heavily inspired by History of Violence), it feels like a patchwork of earlier movies: Dune, Mad Max: Fury Road, Flash Gordon, The Matrix, etc. It looks like a Zack Snyder film but in its plot and sense of humour reminded me more of The Fifth Element. When the twelve foot tall Ashwatthama went into battle to protect SUM-80, it was like seeing Gandalf fight against a mech! Which is to say, it may be a patchwork, but it’s a patchwork of things I love, and highly imaginative in its own right too.

The audience I was with enjoyed it even more than I did. The cinema was packed, and they frequently applauded, whistled and cheered, sometimes for cameos, for example by the directors Ram Gopal Varma and S.S. Rajamouli, and at other times for revelations of characters having returned from the Mahabharata. It was like being back in the cinema for the “No sir, all thirteen!” moment in The Day of the Doctor, over and over again. I wish I had waited forty minutes or so to watch the Telugu version, though, rather than watching a Hindi showing. Although some scenes were reportedly reshot in Hindi, it was pointless losing the original voice performances for no benefit to my understanding. Even with subtitles I may have missed a lot, given that the English subtitles were sometimes inaccurate even for the English-language dialogue.

For such a long film – after an 8pm screening I left the cinema at ten to midnight – it leaves a lot undone, rather like the first two Rebel Moon films, but it’s hard to complain when it ends with a series of spectacular battle sequences. It’s full of fun supporting characters, my favourite being feisty rebel Kyra (Anna Ben). The special effects are superb. We’ve come a long way from the days when Indian films were renowned for being filmed on a shoestring in a rush. Kalki 2898 AD puts down a real marker, showing that the subcontinent, and specifically this talented director Nag Ashwin and his team, can produce science fiction blockbusters every bit as spectacular as those made in Hollywood. Maybe it isn’t an absolute classic, but it’s great fun and it strongly suggests a classic is on its way. I’ll be first in line for the sequel, albeit at a daytime screening. Stephen Theaker ****

Sea Change by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #286 (March–April 2020).

Quite a difficult book to review without spoilers, since it's as slow as its protagonist to trust the reader with any information, Sea Change begins with a self-driving house holding up the traffic, and only gets more mysterious from there. Renata knows what the teal paint on its window sill means: the house belongs to a member of the Org. She uses her electronic key to gain access, and investigates. There's no one inside, not even a corpse, though she suspects foul play. She nabs a toothbrush for DNA testing and bluffs her way out past the police.

All That Is Solid, by Rosanne Rabinowitz (Eibonvale Press) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review was originally written in September 2020 for a previous iteration of the British Fantasy Society website, and then appeared in TQF69 (April 2021).

A pair of female friends, a Polish designer and a formerly East German bookkeeper, are living in London shortly after the UK voted to leave the European Union. Over the course of twenty-eight pages we see the impact of our collective decision on their lives: harassment from yobs on buses, work drying up, and fears about the future, though we also hear about people who stand up for them, and who help a shopkeeper after an arson attack. It’s all getting to Gosia, and Ilona thinks she might benefit from seeing a therapist. The therapist suggests expressing her feelings through art, with peculiar consequences.

Bludgeon Tools: Splatterpunk Anthology edited by K. Trap Jones (The Evil Cookie Publishing) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Tool-themed visceral horror anthology hits the nail on the head in some parts, strikes a thumb in others.

This splatterpunk anthology features stories of extreme violence enacted by tools. It’s mostly the usual suspects like hammers and saws, but there are also a few surprises. Characters range from cavemen wielding primitive weapons (“Sticks and Stones” by Christine Morgan) to students learning about torture techniques through remote instruction (“Online Learning” by Vic Kerry). Several stories involve women using phallus-like tools to exact revenge on men. 

Some entries by lesser-known authors enticed me to purchase more of their work. Conversely, I researched other authors in this anthology to avoid ever attempting to read something by them again. Their stories, limited in conflict and conversation, come across as amateur. The book also suffers from spelling mistakes and typos – at times, it’s enough to pull the reader out of a story. 

Well-known splatterpunk authors Kristopher Triana and Matt Shaw bookend the anthology with equally gruesome stories. In Triana’s “Hammer Time”, call girl Cassie visits a wealthy artist with piercings and tattoos covering his body. A tool aficionado (and a masochist), he has an idea for his ultimate work of art. It’s hard to write a story like this with the intent of being serious, but Triana pulls it off concisely and brutally.

Despite its problems with typos and tense, Matt Shaw’s “Smash It” offers a highly original, graphic depiction of violence that makes the reader cringe and laugh. After a bad experience with acid, the protagonist thinks his penis is encouraging him to violate and kill women. He decides he needs to take care of the problem. 

Stephen Kozeniewski’s “Tool Story”, the anthology’s most original entry, is written from the perspective of three tools used by a man who tortures people for information. Typically, anthropomorphic stories are intended for children, but Kozeniewski’s ultraviolent take results in humour and cleverness. 

In Vic Kerry’s “Online Learning”, an instructor delivers a remote course on torture as if he’s delivering a biology lesson about root systems. His clinical presentation of the subject matter combined with the students’ enthusiasm about using their “volunteers” to do heinous things makes for an amusing read. 

Ola, the protagonist of Jonathan Butcher’s “Drilldo”, decides to take her fetishes into her own hands after she has a bad experience with a dominant who calls himself Dr Surly. She does so after inserting a power drill (handle first) into a tight place. The story appears to be headed down the typical extreme horror path of abusing women, but it twists like a drill bit. 

The concept of a musician killing people on stage has been done before, but maybe not as funnily as in Antoine Cancer’s “Jesus of Jim Beam”. The story reflects the punk rock mentality by saying “f-- you” to the whole tool theme. There really aren’t any tools... or maybe the musician is the tool. Notable is the audience members’ response to the killing spree – they’re not overly impressed. It’s a commentary on being desensitised. 

Bludgeon Tools reinforces a theory about splatterpunk stories: although humour is not a requirement for such fiction, considering the over-the-top nature of the stories, humour often proves to be the best route. Douglas J. Ogurek ***

New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl (Solaris Books) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #281 (May–June 2019).

When asked about the lack of diversity in their books, English anthology editors all too frequently declare that the quality of the individual stories is all that matters. But if every story had the same plot and the same theme their individual quality would do nothing to stop the anthology from being very dull. Excellent books like We See a Different Frontier and The Apex Books of World SF have shown how diversity of contributors contributes to the quality of an anthology, not least because it tends to contribute to variety in the stories.

Koshchei the Deathless, by Mike Mignola and Ben Stenbeck (Dark Horse) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review previously appeared in TQF67 (July 2020).

This Hellboy spin-off, a graphic novel written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, focuses on Koshchei the Deathless. He is a character from Eastern European folklore who appeared briefly in Hellboy as the servant of Baba Yaga, the Russian witch who lives in a house with chicken legs.

The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar (Orion) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #275 (May–June 2018).

This novel tells the story of a twelve-year-old refugee, Nour, as her family flees war-torn Syria in 2011, while she tells and finds strength in the story of Rawiya, a girl crossing the same territory with a renowned map-maker in the twelfth century; for safety, both girls disguise themselves as boys while travelling. Like the main character, the author is American with a Syrian mother, but the book isn’t based on her own experiences.

Halloween Ends | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Halloween ends? Let’s hope so.

Whenever a film or television scene involves a man positioned behind a woman and showing her how to hit/shoot/operate something, my cliché radar goes off – a bad sign for the rest of the programme. This radar bleeped rapidly in Halloween Ends when troubled protagonist Corey (Rohan Campbell) sat behind love interest Allyson Strode (Andi Matichak) and showed her how to operate a motorcycle. Vroom vroom. Dumb.

In the original Halloween (1978), Michael Myers, with his jumpsuit, heavy breathing, expressionless white mask, economic movements, and unexplained drive to kill Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), carved out a new kind of horror film. He not only spawned countless knockoffs, but he also reappeared in eleven subsequent films within the franchise. Though I haven’t seen all of them, I was intrigued by the bold claim inherent in Halloween Ends (2022) – that the franchise would draw to a close. After watching it, I hope it does – the movie had more flaws than a months-old pumpkin. 

The year is 2019, and Myers’s decades-long psychological grip on the provincial residents of Haddonfield, Illinois remains strong. Nobody is more aware of the serial killer’s spell than Laurie, who continues to live there with her adult granddaughter Allyson while writing her dull memoir consisting of meaningless talk about evil.

The movie does offer an intriguing opening sequence in which Corey, who hopes to study engineering, babysits a bratty boy. What happens derails Corey’s life and earns him a negative reputation among the townsfolk. This, coupled with his overprotective mother and detached father, causes Corey’s life to spiral out of control. 

After witnessing Corey get assaulted by younger higher school students, Laurie decides he’d be a good match for her granddaughter. Not very perceptive. Allyson, remarkably well-adjusted despite her parents being killed by Myers, wants to help Haddonfield’s zero-prospect scapegoat overcome his problems. Corey, now working at his father’s mechanics shop, is going down a dark path thanks to the influence of a certain figure he encounters. 

The film, laden with the typical clichés and foreshadowing as conceived by a child, gets increasingly ridiculous until it culminates in an ending worthy of a musical – it seemed as if the characters were about to break into song.

One of the only interesting aspects of Halloween Ends is that the high schoolers who repeatedly antagonise Corey are not the expected jocks or punks, but rather members of the marching band. It shows how pathetic Corey is. Douglas J. Ogurek **

Kill Shakespeare, Vol. 1: A Sea of Troubles, by Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col and Andy Belanger (IDW) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review previously appeared in TQF67 (July 2020).

Written by Canadians Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col, with art by Andy Belanger, this book collects the first six issues of the comic book.

It begins in Denmark, after Hamlet has mistakenly killed Polonius. As in Act IV of the play, he is sent on a ship to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In this version, Rosencrantz reveals the treacherous letter to Hamlet, but it saves him not since he is killed when the pirates attack and sink the ship. Hamlet washes up in the kingdom of Richard III, who declares him the Shadow King, meant to fulfill a great prophecy. He is supposedly to free all these characters from the tyranny of William Shakespeare, their writer and god, by stealing his quill. In truth, Richard III and his allies – including Iago, Lady Macbeth and the witches – want the bard dead.

Stray Pilot, by Douglas Thompson (Elsewhen Press) | review by Stephen Theaker

After World War II, American pilot Thomas Tellman decided to stay in Scotland. He joined RAF Squadron 576, married a Scottish woman, and had a daughter and son with her. They lived in a prefabricated house just outside of Kinburgh, a little place that was hardly much more than a village, up until 1948, when he pursued a UFO high above the clouds and never came back. His seven-year-old daughter, Mary, grew up, had children of her own, and grew old and infirm. His wife died, his son died.

And then, eighty years after he disappeared, he returns, only a year older than when he left. His 87-year-old daughter has dementia. Kinburgh is now a town. Pollution has changed the air, sea and land. All the other prefab houses have long since been demolished, but his daughter still lives in theirs, and when he returns she is delighted. She barely remembers the last half-century anyway, so she’s not asking why he’s so young, she’s wondering why she’s so old.

The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem (Ecco) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #289 (November–December 2020).

Journeyman used to be a screenwriter, though none of his films ever got made. His name back then was Alexander Duplessis. He spent a long time working with producer Peter Todbaum, a Harvey Weinstein-like friend from college, on a pet science fiction project, Yet Another World. Now he lives in Tinderwick, a small town on an isolated peninsula in what used to be New England, wiping up the blood left by the butcher and delivering the meat.

The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi (Kensington) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Plague story infected by lack of action and conflict.

The Night Parade, yet another outbreak story, introduces Wanderer’s Folly, a disease that enrages people, makes them lose their minds and eventually kills them. Moreover, the birds have disappeared, and insects are getting larger. 

English professor David Arlen and his eight-year-old daughter Ellie, holding a shoebox with unhatched bird eggs, hit the road after wife/mother Kathy dies in hospital. David is convinced that Kathy was immune to the disease and that the medical establishment tested her to death. Now, those same individuals want to get their hands on Ellie, who has a blossoming special power. 

David, who may or may not be infected with Wanderer’s Folly, disguises Ellie as a boy, and they drive around aimlessly until David decides he wants to go to a relative’s house. Like many fictional children, Ellie displays unrealistic intelligence and wisdom beyond her years. 

Although there are tense passages and the ending ratchets up the action, the novel suffers from stagnation and meaningless scenes and dialogue. The main characters wander around and converse about uninspiring topics. Their psychological underpinnings are weak, and most goals are short-lived. The Night Parade also includes superfluous backstory about the early days of Wanderer’s Folly and Kathy’s death. Moreover, the novel gets bogged down in details that do not support the plot. We do not need, for instance, a step-by-step explanation of David dyeing his hair black. 

When the characters finally get to a potential conflict, Malfi effectively keeps the reader guessing whether strangers’ hospitality is genuine or feigned for some nefarious purpose. Additionally, some characters’ physical characteristics – droopy eyes or lanky bodies, for instance – add to the realism of scenes. Another creepy detail: when face masks run short, some people resort to cheap plastic Halloween masks, while others wear paper plates with eye holes cut out. 

The Night Parade is just as much about a father’s willingness to accept his daughter’s point of view as it is about a rampant disease. Unfortunately, the novel’s wavering nature detracts from the story. Douglas J. Ogurek **

IF | review by Stephen Theaker

After being so excellent in later seasons of The Walking Dead as Judith, the equally capable daughter of Rick Grimes, Cailey Fleming now takes the lead in possibly the worst-titled film of the year, IF – short for Imaginary Friend, and a nod to the infinite possibilities of the imagination. Fleming plays Bea, a twelve-year-old girl who, after losing her mother to illness, could now lose her father too (John Krasinski). While he’s on a long stay in hospital, being prepped for what he assures her will be a routine heart operation, she stays in a cosy apartment with her lovely but (if you ask me!) nigh-on criminally negligent grandma (Fiona Shaw).

How to Mars by David Ebenbach (Tachyon Publications) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review previously appeared in Interzone #290-291 (March-June 2021).

Two years ago, a small colony was established on Mars, funded by a reality show, Destination Mars! Unfortunately, the show was cancelled once life on Mars turned out to be extremely boring. Even the Martian water was dull, with not a microbe nor a minibeast in sight. Fortunately, the production company continued to send supply rockets, so life goes on.

Machine by Elizabeth Bear (Saga Press) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #289 (November–December 2020).

Dr Brookllyn Jens (Llyn for short) is the rescue co-ordination specialist on the Core General-affiliated medical vessel I Race to Seek the Living. The current mission: Big Rock Candy Mountain, a very old generation ship, has been found hurtling through space at high speed in the wrong location and the wrong direction. Its crew was placed in rickety frozen hibernation by an insane captain and a buxom AI named Helen Alloy (a pun, apparently, on Helen of Troy). Helen has spent the subsequent lonely years upcycling the ship into new components for an intelligent machine, one that looks as if it is made of Tinkertoys (a colourful, wooden, American equivalent of Meccano). But that might not be the machine of the title: the police-issue exosuit that makes it possible for pain-ridden Llyn to live life as she does is just as important to the plot.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (Swoon Reads) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Young adult novel muddies message of acceptance with lackluster writing.

Sixteen-year-old Yadriel, a trans gay boy (born female, identifies as male, attracted to males) and member of a Latinx family, wants more than anything for his East Los Angeles brujx (a gender-nonconforming variant of the Spanish bruja/o, meaning “witch” or “sorcerer”) community to accept him as a brujo (a male who finds lost spirits and sends them to the afterlife). He plans to do this by summoning the ghost of his murdered cousin Miguel, then guiding him to the afterworld. Alas, Yadriel’s father holds firm to tradition, which prohibits people born female from becoming brujos — they must develop into brujas. The only two who seem to wholeheartedly embrace Yadriel’s identity are his cousin and friend Maritza and his uncle.

Thus, Cemetery Boys is a young adult novel about transitioning, from the spirit world to the afterlife, from female to male, and from one mindset to another.

The trouble begins when Yadriel, accompanied by Maritza, inadvertently summons the ghost of high school classmate and reputed gang member Julian Diaz. Yadriel wants to use his special knife to cut the magical thread that binds Julian’s spirit to Earth and therefore send him to the afterlife. But Julian begs for Yadriel to hold off so he can make sure his friends are okay. Yadriel relents, flaunts the brujx rules, and takes the “reckless and beautiful” Julian through various obstacles while attempting to avoid detection by most people (who can’t see Julian) and Yadriel’s magical kin (who can). 

Yadriel and Julian get to know each other and their shared inner struggles. Clearly, Yadriel is attracted to Julian, who, despite his immaturity, unconditionally accepts Yadriel as a boy. But it seems the feelings aren’t necessarily mutual. Author Aiden Thomas adds tension by setting a deadline: if Yadriel doesn’t send Julian over by Día de Muertos (the Day of the Dead) in just a few days, Julian’s spirit might turn maligno.

The message that this book attempts to convey is a good one. The story, however, falters. It suffers from several repeating elements that become grating. Examples include physical gestures (lip biting, arm crossing, hand raising) intended solely to punctuate dialogue, an obsession with Julian’s dark eyes, meaningless chatter, and frequent mentions of Yadriel’s binder to remind the reader he was born female. Thomas’s excursions into the rituals and foods of Día de Muertos also cause the story to drag, and melodramatic speeches worsen an ending that stretches out too long. Douglas J. Ogurek **