Sometimes, when I sit down to write a review, I immediately know what I want to say. This is not such a time. Neil Gaiman's blurb for this novel is, "Pretty much perfect," and I'm not sure I can argue with that. I'm not even sure what more there is to say, but I will try. It was the sort of book that left me wanting more, but in such a way that my want felt like my own problem. The book gives what it wants and needs to give and more.
On first glance, the setting of this book might seem familiar. There is the young girl, with a Past and with Power. And there are vampires. Those, at least, are the vampires you expect. When I tell you that our heroine will get involved in things greater than herself, with mysterious people, with intimations of a struggle for humanity, I also need to tell you that this is not the book you are imagining. It is determinedly narrow. For all the allusions for which one might expect explanations, for all the mysterious characters, this never leaves its focus on the main character and her relationships. It could have been epic fantasy, but it manifestly is not. And yet, the grandeur survives the narrow scope.
All this is assisted by the first person narrative. It is a stream of consciousness in the sense that the term should mean, not incoherent rambling, but a real train of thought that is not usually, but at times both inchoate and rambling. The voice is familiar and authentic and the prism through which we view her world. Thus, while we gain some familiarity with the Voodoo Wars, an earthshattering event in the recent past, it is not proximate. More important is the coffee shop in which Sunshine works, and, of course, the people that frequent it. Through brief and evocative stretches, such as the one about the attempted gentrification of the area around the shop, the setting is evoked, but always with Sunshine at the center. There is a moderness to the novel, not the grittiness of elfpunk nor the magical industrial revolution of, say, Ian MacLeod's The Light Ages. As best I can express, it was real without being too real, fantastic without being Fantasy.
By now, it is not a spoiler to tell you that early on, Sunshine meets vampires. From the first line, "It was a dumb thing to do but it wasn't dumb.", there are ten pages of backstory until, "I never heard them coming. Of course you don't, when they're vampires." After that, five pages of exposition that never feels forced. Rather, it is the digression of someone trying to explain herself. But the story returns and we soon meet Constantine, the vampire that you were expecting. In some ways, the vampires are the weakest part of the novel. For all that they are suitably mysterious and powerful, I couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity. I've read this story too many times, right, the seductive vampire and the young woman and all that that entails? There is perhaps too much of that here, but it is not overwhelming. There is too much different to be spoiled by this minor sameness.
There are great deeds in this novel, if not Great Deeds. If there was a problem for me, it was that I wanted to know more. The narrowness almost felt stifling. I wanted to know more about the Goddess of Pain. I wanted Constantine to be a tad more loquacious. I'm a sucker for the accoutrements of epic fantasy. But this is my flaw, not that of the novel. Perhaps a sequel is to follow, to explain more, to broaden the scope. But this novel doesn't need that. As it is, it's pretty much perfect.
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Last updated 12/7/03