Author: Christie Hsiao
Publisher: Benbella Books Inc
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review.
I had the weirdest feeling when I started this that this novel wasn't written for a lone reader, but for someone to read to children. I don't know if Hsaio intended that, but that's how it felt to me, which wouldn't have been so bad if the writing wasn't so flowery that it's actually hard to read (and I don't mean technically hard, either). There's far too much hyperbole, and too many redundant phrases like "obsidian black". While I think I see what she intended by that, it seemed about as meaningful to me as saying "dark black". Later, she uses the awful phrase, "jaundiced shade of pale yellow" which is so redundant as to be absurd. Hsaio does present to me as if she has some good street cred and she seems to have her head screwed on right, so I wanted to like this, but I just could not like it no matter how hard I tried.
I'm a sucker for Asians and their mythology, but I'm definitely not the intended age range for this novel (which is 8 - 12 years old), but I do have two sons within that age range, and I can assure you that they would not touch a novel like this with a ten-foot pole. And rest assured that if I had a daughter, she would not like it either because it's simply not an engaging story, nor is it intelligently written. The story should appeal to the My Little Pony crowd, but if that's too immature for you or your kids, you won't like this novel at all. I do however, have a suggestion as to how that could be fixed at the end of this review.
Much as I wanted to enjoy this, Hsaio seemed determined to irritate me with every fresh chapter. She's yet another of these shamefully ignorant writers I've encountered this year who think the upper arm muscles (biceps and triceps) come in a singular form! Indeed she refers with an authoritative tone to the upper tricep! Honestly? A simple spell-checker would have caught this gaff. I may not deserve better than this, but my sons do, as do others of their age group. I decided yesterday to give this novel a stay of execution for one more day, because life is too short, and novels too plentiful to put up with anything as sub-standard as this story insisted upon showing itself to be, but even that was a day too many, I'm sorry to say.
Yu-ning, the female protagonist, is a Darq Render recognizable by the crescent-shaped birthmark on the inside of the upper left arm, yet the brilliant magician Metatron failed to see the significance of this! He failed to protect the community from the rogue Obsidigon (evil dragon), and he's unable to cure himself, let alone others, which is why they inexplicably have a hospital in the reputedly perfect community in which Yu-ning lives. It’s really too tiresome to continue to discover in how many of these fantasy stories we find the magician/wizard/witch is so useless as to be, well, useless, and so it's all on a poor kid to save everyone! But there's neither rationale nor justification to support the proposition that this kid is so special. Anyone can fire the arrows into the Obsidigon and "render" it into butterflies! This takes no special person or great skill.
The biggest problem with this story which is supposed to be about love and understanding is that in order to save everyone, Yu-ning has to render the dark! She has to be a warrior to fight and slay (not kill, mind you but slay!) the dragons. Where is the love there? That magician can’t render the dragons into butterflies by using magic? And what’s up with these beings of light living in dark caves? That just registered as truly odd with me, as indeed did their eating of eggs for breakfast when they supposedly love and respect animals so much that Yu-ning at one point grows angry with a hunter for killing them! What's that about taking the plank from your own eye, Yu-ning? I guess that proverb didn't travel very far in an easterly direction.
These people seem to have no problem with killing (no, that's cruel, I meant rendering....) when it suits them. The real irony of this exchange with the hunter is that without the knowledge and skill of such people, Yu-ning would never have a hunting weapon (her bow) to go after the Obsidigons to begin with! Indeed, at one point, a giant owl named Suparna, declares proudly "…in order for the light to shine...we must rend - or tear - the light from the dark." Why the violent language?
Yu-ning fixes the water wheel in the tower at the center of the Grey City (the population of which is treated in a condescending, almost racist fashion) and claims she did it with faith when she did no such thing. It was simple hydraulic engineering which fixed the lift mechanism's lack of water (for turning the wheel). Faith had nothing to do with it - unless it was faith in her hydraulic engineering skills! Anyone with modicum of grey matter could have figured out why the wheel wasn’t turning, traced the problem to the blockage, and unblocked it. And faith isn't going to save them if the ropes on the poorly-maintained lift are rotten! Simple proclamations of faith will not change Grey City, especially when those proclamations are dishonest. Yu-ning would have "rendered" the city a greater service if she had explained to them what the problem was and shown them how to fix it rather than fixing it and then essentially lying that "faith did it"! Maybe 'Faith' is Yu-ning's English name?
There are unintentional moments of hilarity: Yu-ning's arms started to tire from the power of the light? Light has no mass, so how is it tiring, exactly? If you want to enlighten children, don't keep them in the dark about light! Explain the science without vague allusions and obfuscations regarding faith and inner light - especially when you really don't understand light! This level of hilarity was somewhat unleavened with unexplained events such as Julian's claim that Yu-ning cured him? Of what? Hunger? She gave him an apple and that's it!
I expected a lot more from this novel and was sorry that such a promising premise failed to deliver on all levels but art. The illustrations were charming, and quite well done, but they were sadly let down by the writing. Perhaps this volume should have come out as a graphic novel? I rated it warty.
