Confronting ancient mysteries

REVIEWS BY GAVIN J. GRANT

Guy Gavriel Kay is justifiably renowned for his historical fantasies, but after a family trip to France he has produced what could be a breakout book for him, his first contemporary fantasy in many years, Ysabel. Ned, 15-year-old son of famous photographer Edward Marriner, is simultaneously bored and excited to be accompanying his father to Provence for a six-week photo shoot. Ned is a lively, prickly character always ready to speak his mind—or to sulk if that will keep the adults around him off-balance. Within a day of arriving in Aix-en-Provence (where his father is going to shoot Saint-Sauveur Cathedral), Ned meets Kate, an exchange student from New York City. Kate is a history geek and the two are soon enjoying being with each other and away from the pressure of their hometown crowd of friends. While in the cathedral—which has been roped off from tourists during the shoot—Ned has a strange experience when he realizes they're not alone. Somewhat freaked out by his expanded perceptions, Ned confronts a stranger they see climbing out of a grate in the floor of the baptistery. The stranger has a knife. Suffice it to say, the stranger is no friendly fellow. From this quick start, Kay builds a fantastic novel of modern people confronting ancient powers. Ysabel is a great way to kick off the year and should make more readers aware of Kay's remarkable backlist.


Gift from the sea

Like Kay, writer Nalo Hopkinson has also produced historical fiction, but her latest book, The New Moon's Arms, is a very enjoyable contemporary fantasy set in the Caribbean. For two years Calamity Lambkin has tended to the needs of her father, and after his death she must decide what to do with herself. She has moved into her father's house and reduced her work hours at the library. Now she finds that she is nearly broke and has almost pushed everyone else away. Never married, she was a teenage mother who raised her child while living with an uncle and aunt. She rarely sees her daughter (or grandson) and even though she sometimes pines for him, her daughter's father is happily settled in a long-term relationship. Calamity, once known as Chastity, is not a simple person: She knows there is more to life than meets the eye and is sharp and funny, but she also reflexively and vigorously espouses popular Caribbean anti-gay sentiments. Still, Calamity has a large heart just waiting for someone to love, and when she comes across a young child with a broken leg washed in from a storm, she does everything she can to help him. She tries to adopt the child and even tries to make up with an old high school enemy when she discovers to her horror that he is the boy's doctor. The child is broad-chested, has a disturbing sleep-breathing pattern, and enough other oddities that the doctor and Calamity wonder if he is actually human. As the boy's leg heals, Calamity finds that other people, especially those who work in, on or by the sea, know something that most people don't about their closest neighbors. In this brisk and satisfying novel, Hopkinson skillfully weaves together myths and legends and reveals their impact on a modern fractured family. Ultimately Calamity has an opportunity to see herself from another point of view and perhaps change for the better.


Brain trust

The second novel from Canadian writer Minister Faust (after The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad) is From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain and it might be one of the most entertaining books to cross your path this year. Open it and you'll find a novel that's also a self-help book for superheroes by Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman, therapist to heroes, or the "extraordinarily-abled" as they're known here. Dr. Brain is the author of Why Do Bad Villains "Happen" to Good Heroes? and Bulletproof, Schmulletproof and has been called in to help out the six members of the Fantastic Order of Justice. Now that all their foes and archenemies have been either killed or locked up in a super-prison, Asteroid Zed, the members of the team are finding regular life tough, and dealing with one another even tougher. Faust is an original writer with a passionate interest in people—be they crazy or "normal"—and his pulpy satire takes accurate swings at our me-first society and the pop culture idols who have floated to the top.


Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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