The Secrets Of Jin-Shei by Alma Alexander

Title: The Secrets Of Jin-Shei
Author: Alma Alexander
Publisher: Harper
Rating: WORTHY!

erratum:
p102 "...they would all sit subside on the ground..." I suspect that either 'sit' or 'subside' is superfluous and didn't get deleted when the other word was substituted.
p337 "...all except Cai's death, with she left..." should be "...all except Cai's death, which she left..."
p345 "...and if you friend is right..." should be "...and if your friend is right..."

In some ways this novel reminds me of Kiyohara Nagiko, aka Sei Shōnagon, Japanese author of the thousand-year-old The Pillow Book (makura no sōshi), and of Lady Murasaki, aka Murasaki Shikibu, author of the equally ancient The Tale of Genji. Not long ago I read The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby, a fictionalized version based on Lady Murasaki's own diary, and it was charming. I put this novel in a class with that one. It has that same 'different era' vibe, and the same idealistic view of life in the Far East. I recommend reading that novel, too, especially because it's based on an actual person and actual events.

Alma Alexander put a heck of a lot of effort into this and it shows. This novel is poetical, easy on the ear, and engrossing, but it is also long and complex. Perhaps too long, but not too complex if you pay attention! She does jump around like a rabbit however (does like a rabbit, bucks like a rabbit? - I use the word advisedly given the behavior of the emperor in this novel!), going from one character to another, with some of them carrying the story for a long time whereas others appear only briefly here and there.

The novel is set, effectively, in ancient China, but Alexander removes it from that reality by naming the nation Syai. She also employs some ancient Chinese realities, such as the secret language, named Nüshu (nü meaning 'woman' and the rest meaning writing). This was employed between women in China until the last speaker of it, Yang Huanyi, died in 2004, although who she talked to in those waning years is not known! In this novel Nüshu is renamed jin-ashu, and the Chinese concept on non-blood sisterhood, named LaoTong ("old sames") is used under the name of jin-shei. Two such sisters would be jin-shei-bao to each other.

Tai is the daughter of a palace seamstress until a chance meeting with Antian, a member of the royal family, and a consequent chat about art and poetry leads the princess to offer Tai a pact of jin-shei - unbreakable sisterhood - between them. Unfortunately, this tie with Tai is not to last since virtually the entire royal family is killed in an earthquake in their mountain retreat.

Tai survives, and Antian with her dying breath, begs her to take care of her sister. The only sister of which Tai is aware is Liudan, the one who stayed at home and therefore never experienced the earthquake. She is an unwanted third-in-line sister who is resentful that she never had a shot at the throne - until now, but when she steps up, she does so in grand style, refusing to take a husband, and choosing to rule as an unmarried "dragon empress".

In chapter three, Alexander jumps from the story of the very rocky relationship between Tai and Liudan and introduces us to two more girls: Xaforn, in her early teens, is an orphan who is training very hard to be the youngest inductee into the palace guard. Xaforn ends up unexpectedly befriending Qiaan, the daughter of one of the guard captains, who herself has no interest in joining the military.

Continuing these abrupt jumps, we're next introduced to Nhia, who has a 'withered leg', but who is mobile. She spends a lot of her time at the temple wasting her life begging for the non-existent gods to help her, but she actually becomes the author of her own destiny, as all people do, no gods needed. One day in the temple grounds, she's sitting next to an acolyte, and a woman comes asking for advice. While the acolyte is still pondering what to say, Nhia offers a story which brings solace to the woman, and from this humble start, she grows to the point where she is telling stories to children in the temple grounds even though she has no official right to be there.

Nhia is befriended by Khailin, who has her own agenda to get herself an education and who sees Nhia as the vehicle by which to achieve her aim, but the two become friends and jin-shei. This jin-shei spreads amongst these women like wildfire, each of them slowly becoming more and more entangled with the others like elementary particles in some physics experiment. Two more girls show up, in the form of Tammary, and Yuet, the healer's apprentice.

The way Alexander develops this is very natural and organic. There is no falsehood to this story - no "Wait, what?" moments. As I mentioned, it takes longer than I think it ought, but she tells a very engrossing story and tells it beautifully.

Things become complicated in unexpected ways, such as when the mysterious and artistic Tammary shows up, living with the traveler people, and such as when Khailin ends up married to a sorcerer and becomes imprisoned in his literally living house, and such as when Yuet starts noticing the remarkable likeness between Qianna and the young empress Liudan....

One of my pet peeves with this is not with the novel per se, but with the pinyin pronunciation, which was formalized in the late fifties by the Chinese government to facilitate representing Chinese words in Arabic script. God only knows who actually came up with this nonsensical system, but it's completely nuts.

Alexander gives a brief overview of pinyin in the back of the novel, but it should have been in the front, because the names, the way they're written, make zero sense and are in fact completely misleading as compared with the actual pronunciation. Here are the eight characters again, with the pronunciation for each name:
As Written _ _ As Pronounced
Khailin _ _ _ Kay Leen
Liudan _ _ _ _ Lee O'Dan
Nhia _ _ _ _ _ N'ya
Qiaan _ _ _ _ Chiaan
Tai _ _ _ _ _ Tay
Tammary _ _ _ Tammary
Xaforn _ _ _ _ Shaforn
Yuet _ _ _ _ _ Y'et

Nuts, right? As I mentioned in my review of Between Two Worlds which also had pronunciation issues, the only important thing in this is to make the name sound right! Since there's no connection at all between Chinese scripts (or in this case Syai script!) and the Arabic alphabet used in western nations, there's no reason at all to depict the words in any way other than phonetically.

But that's a minor point. I loved this story and I highly recommend it. Alexander is one of the rare YA authors who knows how to write intelligent and engrossing female characters who are strong and memorable and who are not in the least dependent upon men to validate their existence. She also has a trilogy which is really good (yes, from me, who detests trilogies!)

The Devil Incarnate by Jill Braden

Title: The Devil Incarnate
Author: Jill Braden
Publisher: Wayzgoose Press
Rating: Worthy!

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 for this review.

Errata:
p126 "...wreck havoc..." should be "...wreak havoc..."

p149 "...ever piece of furniture..." should be "...every piece of furniture..."
p185 "...council..." should be "...counsel..."
p210 "...limited into..." should be "...limited to..."
p249 "...he could tell it she'd forced it..." should be "...he could tell that she'd forced it..." perhaps?
p260 "Kym" should be "Kyam"
p265 "...her let her go..." should be "...he let her go..."
(Hint to Jill Braden recruit me as a beta reader! I'll catch this stuff!)

This is the second volume in The Devil of Ponong series. I have already reviewed the first and I also plan on reviewing the next one, the first chance I get, because this series is that good. I am not a fan of trilogies/series because I find it rare that an author can sustain the passion and attraction over such an "extended novel" so it speaks volumes(!) that I am enjoying this one so much and willing to recommend it.

In passing, and as I did for the review for volume 1, I advise you to visit the author's web site, which is a joy. Contrary to what all-too-many authors use their web pages for, this is not a shameless self-promotion site, but a place where a real writer shows how much she loves to put words on paper (or on screen!). For anyone interested in the art and process of writing, it's a welcome breath of sweet scented air, believe me.

In volume one we met a rare, rather startling, and very unusual female protagonist in the shape of QuiTai, a complex and intriguing woman of the Ponongese people - a race of beings which is humanoid in form, but which carries certain traits typically found, on Earth, in the viperid snake family. You may think it odd that I find such a woman - one who has venomous fangs folded away in the roof of her mouth - appealing, but I found QuiTai to be irresistible, even more so in volume two than in volume one. She is smart, capable, fearless, and relentless.

She is a member of the Qui group, which has special powers. In particular, QuiTai is gifted as an oracle, something which she only slowly comes to realize. She lives on the island of Ponong, which was, some time before this series begins, invaded by the Thampurians, a race of sea-dragon people who are shape-shifters. Maybe you can guess into which shape they shift. Also in this world are the Li, a race of people with cat-like traits, the Ravidians, a race reminiscent of lizards, the Ingosolians (a race of indeterminate gender!), and finally a race of werewolves, which now appears to be extinct on Ponong, although their legend lives on - something which both benefits and plagues QuiTai.

This woman is not your usual action hero. She's more like James Bond, but a James Bond who has gone over to the dark side - yet not completely gone over. QuiTai can be viewed as a recipe which melds James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, with a dash of The Dark Knight added for piquancy - I kid you not. By the time volume two begins, she's simultaneously seen by the locals as both an underground hero and a dangerous villain.

She sidles around in the shadows, collecting information, processing it in her sharp and incisive mind, and arriving at conclusions which others would reach slowly, if at all. Once she determines what needs to be done, she does not hesitate to act. In short, she's the very epitome of what I search for almost fruitlessly in novel after novel: a strong female character where strength isn't blindly equated with the ability to kick someone's derriere. QuiTai is a strong female character where strong = the opposite of weak. She's the kind of woman who does not need rescuing, who relies on her own mind and body to take care of business (whatever that business might be), and who goes after what needs to be done like a greyhound at the track.

That doesn't mean that she's always running. Indeed, in this novel, she starts out largely incapacitated after a life-or-death struggle with a werewolf in the first volume. Now she has an infected leg and is forced to lay low until she recovers. Laying low, however, should in no way be equated with keeping still. QuiTai does not keep still, not even when sick.

She needs to learn who it is who paid to have her assassinated in volume one, and as she pursues this inquiry, she discovers that something really odd is happening on this occupied island: a new Thampurian militia is stealthily moving into place and all Ponongese activities are slowly being suspended and thwarted. Their right to meet and exchange goods in the market place is abruptly canceled for example, and their fishing fleet is prevented from putting to sea.

This new military wears non-standard black uniforms, without insignia, not even of rank, and the soldiers never use names when taking to each other. So what the heck is going on now in QuiTai's homeland? This is something which she cannot let pass.

And that's the sum total of spoilers you're going to get! I will tease you, however, by saying that, very early in this novel, there's an exquisite encounter between QuiTai and Lizzriat, the androgynous Ingosolian owner of the Dragon Pearl drug den, which I found delicious. Jill Braden is a tease and that's all there is to it. I said it first! Lizzriat reminds me a bit of the character Pie'oh'pah in Clive Barker's Imajica, and I demand more of her (or him) in volume three. Do you hear me Ms Braden?

Almost as hypnotic is her relationship with RhiHanya, a woman who, at no small risk to her family, opens her home to QuiTai and takes her in until she's recovered from her fever. The slowly rising tension between these two, and QuiTai's amusing and frustrated thoughts about it are precious.

A word to the wise (or to those who wish to be): if you're expecting a tedious trope romantic novel, don't look here. You won't find it. You'll find amorous allusions, and teasing thoughts, but there are no fluttering breaths or "be still my beating heart" gasps here. If you want a wilting maiden you're in the wrong novel. There are scores of other adult and young-adult novels out there with which you can numb and stunt your mind in that regard. If, on the other hand, you want a woman who is meaningfully strong, and a story which is unpredictable, and which is full of intrigue, shifting political affiliations, and unexpected alliances, then Jill Braden's beat is the place to be.

I honestly cannot judge if this is better than volume one, or if the first volume just edges this one out. I think it's a tie. This is a different story with the largely the same cast, but with some wrenches gleefully tossed into the works by the author. It organically builds upon the first story (and despite what the author claims on her web site about her writing style, I suspect there was planning going on here - at least in the rough, to get this to flow so well! Either that or Jill Braden is even more brilliantly off-the-cuff than I at first assessed her to be.)

I highly recommend this. If you liked the first you will enjoy this, and if you don't, remember that QuiTai is out there, fangs folded, stalking silently, and she's a woman who does not suffer fools lightly...!

(On a personal note I should very much like to thank Dorothy of Wayzegoose Press for her kindness and support and for allowing me a chance to get an early look at this novel)

The Devil's Concubine by Jill Braden

Title: The Devil's Concubine
Author: Jill Braden
Publisher: Wayzgoose Press
Rating: Worthy!

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 for this review.

The Devil's Concubine is another exercise in making sure you choose a unique title for your novel. Barnes & Noble lists six titles with this name and that doesn't even include Palle Schmidt's graphic novel with this same title. The cover art is exquisite, although I don't normally address covers because the author typically has little or nothing to do with them. This blog is about writing! This novel is evidently the first in a series. The sequel, The Devil Incarnate is already available and the author is working on the third in this unique series.

Jill Braden is a fellow blogspotter, although I don't know her. From her blog (link above) it sounds like she writes pretty much like I do (in terms of basic approach) which is a bit nice to know, and it looks like she blogs about her writing as she goes. I've never recommended a writer's blog before, although I always link to it if I can find a link, but in this case I will make an exception because it looks like she's all about writing too, something which I have to say I admire and in which I find a lot of comfort! Her blog is not one of those nothing-but-promote-myself blogs like all-too-many writer's blogs seem to be to me. Please go take a look.

Braden's is actually a dynamic blog. I love, for example, that she's a Doctor Who fan, and that she gets so passionate about Irene Adler from the British series revived by Doctor Who head writer Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss: Sherlock You can find my refutation of the standard criticisms of the Lara Pulver episode here. I think too many people, several of whom are purportedly feminists, sadly got this wrong in their quite evidently undue haste to condemn Moffat's Adler, and I think they will realize how wrong they got it when Irene Adler returns. Of course, I could be wrong (I often am!), but we'll see.

The critics' main problem, in my opinion, is in first of all misunderstanding Adler in the original Doyle version, and thereby pumping her up into something she was actually not and second, in misunderstanding Moffat's version even more than they have misunderstood Doyle's. That's not to say that their criticism is entirely without foundation, but I think such criticism needs to be much more realistic than it has hitherto shown itself to be.

What bothers me about Braden's criticism is that she's a writer herself! If she's so outraged by it, why doesn't she take up the challenge and write her own Adler story? That I'd like to see, especially since she appears (from what I've read of her blog so far) to share many of my own views on strong female characters! Indeed, I had several fleeting ideas for my own Adler story once I'd caught up with all the jetsam in the wake of Moffat's juggernaut version of the tale. I volunteer to co-write it with her to make sure both male and female perspectives are adequately represented; then let people come and criticize our effort! Bring it on!

But I digress! In several ways, this novel reminds me of Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey, which I also reviewed, although it's a very different story. It does have a similar vibe in that, for example, the main protagonist is a woman of pleasure who is subjected to some pain (not willingly, and nowhere near as much in this novel as in the other), and who is in a position of some power which she can wield only in secret or indirectly. Like Kushiel's Dart, it's also well-written: beautifully expressive and evocative. Some might find the story a little slow-moving to begin with (I did not), but that makes it only more suggestive of the roller-coaster that it is, and once it gets going, there's no stopping it. You will want to ride it to the end, and then get on again (in volume 2!).

The name, QuiTai sounds remarkably like the name of my favorite female character of all time: Kitai from the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. Talk about strong females! Of course, that does depend upon how the name is supposed to be pronounced, but there's no guide offered to that end, so I'll pronounce it how I choose, thank you very much! This QuiTai is nowhere near in that Kitai's league, but she's definitely worth following.

In this novel, too, the main character is an alien, but in this case, a humanoid with some snake traits. I'd gage her to be the first cousin to the snake on the tree in Eden if I believed in fairy tales: she definitely has the same skill set! Like some snakes, QuiTai has collapsible venomous fangs in her sweet mouth, and the venom can be used, in moderation, to summon her oracle god, into the mouth of those she injects, enabling them to foretell future events for QuiTai, although as usual with this kind of thing, it doesn't seem to do her much good, or to keep her out of trouble!

The Devil in this story, is a werewolf pack-leader named Petrof; a disgusting animal of a man, who nevertheless somehow manages to evoke passion (either in the form of anger or of pure lust) within QuiTai. She's the concubine to this werewolf, but given that he has no wife, I'm not convinced that 'concubine' is technically the correct term. I freely grant that it makes for a much more intriguing title, however. Be advised that I am not a fan of werewolf stories, so I launched into this with some trepidation, although by the halfway point, I'd decided that this was not a drawback for me, and I was quite happy with where this novel went and how it turned out. This is not your grandmother's werewolf story! Indeed, it isn't a werewolf story at all, not in the big picture.

QuiTai lives on a island - an occupied island where the colonists rule everything, and where exotic beings of several hues and varieties coexist. It's rather reminiscent of North America in the mid-eighteenth century, ruled from afar and bearing a heavy tax burden, but the characters which populate this tale make the colonists and their overlords look like characters out of a children's story book! Just as QuiTai is being picked-up to visit her master to serve his animal needs, she receives a secret note from someone she considers to be her arch enemy: an artist named Kyam Kul. He's of the same race as that which is occupying the island, and he hails from a wealthy family from which he's apparently all but exiled in disgrace. And he's also not an artist. Not in his soul, at any rate.

What he wants from her she does not know, but she finds it intriguing that right at the point where she has been having indefinable feelings that something is seriously amiss on the island somehow, somewhere, her enemy has reached out to her. She has to talk The Devil into letting her pose for a portrait in order to get time with Kyam to find out what he wants - and whether what he wants will serve her interests adequately. I confess I was a bit disappointed that more was not made of the scene where he starts to draw her. I saw a potential for some very subtle eroticism there, which failed to materialize, but it's rather hard to be so sensual when there's sand blowing into every crevice...!

From that point onwards, the story is one of intrigue, adventure, danger, and death, and I loved every minute of it. It's a very original tale with some unexpected story devices to keep the interest boiling and move the plot along organically, not artificially. Everything fits and everything works. It did slow down for me in the second half, a little bit, but by then I had enough investment in it that I wasn't going to let that get in my way. Overall, it's professionally written and very entrancing. This is a story that makes all the poor ones worth wading through just to find something as seductive as this. I recommend it highly.

Journey to Rainbow Island by Christie Hsiao

Title: Journey to Rainbow Island
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.

Spera by Dialynas, Gandy, Zhao, Bosma, Tierney and others

Title: Spera
Publisher: Archaia
Rating: WORTHY!

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. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

Credits:
Michael Dialynas woodencrown.com - artist
Meg Gandy shatterlands.com - artist
Amei Zhao ameizhao.com - artist
Sam Bosma sbosma.com - artist
Josh Tierney spera-comic.com
Additional material:
Afu Chan afuchan.com
Corey Godbey coreygodby.com
Giannis Milongiannis milonogiannis.tumblr.com - artist
Rebecca Mock rebeccamock.tumblr.com artist
Ken Niimura niimurablog.blogspot.com
Kyla Vanderklugt Kylavanderklugt.com
Jake Wyatt jakewyattriot.tumblr.com

This will be a short review compared with my usual because this is a comic book and if I say too much I'll be telling the whole story! But in short, I enjoyed this comic even though it was designed for a younger audience than I represent.

This comic book is volume three of a tale of the young rebel princesses Lono and Pira, and some friends including a fire fox (not to be confused with the web browser) called Yonder, who can also appear as a fiercely red-bearded man, and their trusty cat called Chobo which is a lot smarter than it looks. This story is very much invested in east Asian fantasy, and the crew find themselves engaged in some really weird and entertaining adventures as they try to find their place in the world, stay out of trouble, and pursue treasure. I recommend this because it’s playful and interesting, and it really knows how to take you by surprise.

This comic seems aimed at a younger audience: the lower end of young-adult, and the pubescent and older pre-pubescent children. There is a main story, which entertained me, but which I did find a bit confusing at times as to what was going on and who was doing what and why. It would probably have been easier to follow had I started at volume 1! In addition to the main story there are some supporting features - like the movie theaters used to show at one time long ago, with the main feature plus a supporting movie. I have to say that the Pira depicted in the supporting material in the 140's pages is far more appealing to me than is the one in the main story. She's feisty and sword-weilding, and cool-looking, and she's also black - and that's one thing I really became aware of: there weren't too many people of color populating this comic book. I'm not sure why that was.

But that aside, I enjoyed Spera and think it’s worth your taking a look if you have children who are the right age range, and they’re at all interested in Asian fantasy.