Into the West - Mercedes Lackey

 

About the Book

Baron Valdemar and his people have found a temporary haven, but it cannot hold all of them, or for long. Trouble could follow on their heels at any moment, and there are too many people for Crescent Lake to support. Those who are willing to make a further trek by barge on into the West will follow him into a wilderness depopulated by war and scarred by the terrible magics of a thousand years ago and the Mage Wars. But the wilderness is not as "empty" as it seems. There are potential friends and rapacious foes...
 
...and someone is watching them.

496 pages
Published December 13, 2022

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I've read Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar novels since I was a teen, and at this point, I've read every mainline novel in the series. They're far from perfect, but they've been a part of my life for so long that it would been strange to not read any of the new novels that release. So I'm very used to the author's style of storytelling. Often there's a lot of slow build-up for the vast majority of the novel, culminating in an intense action scene right at the end, possibly ending with a bit of a cliff-hanger depending on whether there's more story to be told later.

And Into the West stays true to that storytelling style. If you know that in advance, what you get here doesn't come as any sort of surprise. But that doesn't necessarily mean the book is that great. Into the West isn't the worst Valdemar novel I've read, but it's far from the best.

Following on from the conclusion of Beyond, the previous novel in the Founding of Valdemar series (which will probably be a trilogy, but at the moment I can't say that for certain), where Baron Valdemar is in wild uncharted lands and is responsible for thousands of people, but still has to find places for everyone to settle. Thus, a significant portion of the book is just about people moving from place to place, trying to find a new home. Complete with all the details that act as a great aid to imagination but in text come across as a lot of filler. It was actually quite frustrating at times, to read so many pages and to realise that absolutely nothing happened in them.

Really, most of the story was fine, if nothing special. What I mostly will remember about this book are the parts that were bad, rather than the few that were good. Tayledras telling Valdemar that their name for a nearby river was "Ter'i'le'e," which fans of the series as a whole will recognize as the Terilee River, which I think all of us assumed was named after a future Valdemaran monarch, Queen Terilee. Instead, I guess we're supposed to assume the queen was named after a river, which was named by another culture, in a style that actually doesn't match other examples of the Tayledras language that Mercedes Lackey has given us over the years. Or the reference to Moonmoon, an Internet meme from 10 years ago. After the awkwardness of Beyond using terms like "doggo" and "pupper," it all gets difficult to take seriously.

I think the most egregious problem, though, is the timeline. For well over a decade now, the Valdemar books have included a timeline that established the founding of Valdemar to be 1000 years after a disaster known as the Cataclysm. Into the West, however, suddenly changes that and declares the Cataclysm to have taken place a mere 500 years prior to the founding. Even the book's description states that the Cataclysm was 1000 years ago, for crying out loud! The author is well-known to have made errors with the timeline before, but never one of this magnitude. Combined with other odd issues and errors, Into the West comes across as poorly done in many respects, filled with clumsy attempts to appeal to today's youth while also messing with aspects of the world of Velgarth in ways that could have easily been prevented had the author checked any wiki devoted to her writings. It's a shame, so many of the myriad small problems I had (and the gigantic one) could have been easily prevented, but more and more when it comes to Valdemar, it feels like the author just writes what she wants to write without considering how that fits into the world she's already established.

Into the West isn't bad, but it felt wholly unnecessary, a small section of a larger story that contained so little of note that it may as well have been boiled down to a few chapters in another novel instead of stretching it out to fill and entire book. It's one that, as a long-time fan, I find difficult to recommend to anyone who has even passing knowledge and affection for the series. While I definitely don't think that Mercedes Lackey should stop writing, I do wish she'd take more time and care to make sure that what she does write actually works in context. As I said earlier, this isn't the worst Valdemar novel I've read, but it's unfortunately pretty close.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror - Mizuki Tsujimura

 

About the Book

Seven students find unusual common ground in this warm, puzzle-like Japanese bestseller laced with gentle fantasy and compassionate insight.

Bullied to the point of dropping out of school, Kokoro’s days blur together as she hides in her bedroom, unable to face her family or friends. As she spirals into despair, her mirror begins to shine; with a touch, Kokoro is pulled from her lonely life into a resplendent, bizarre fairytale castle guarded by a strange girl in a wolf mask. Six other students have been brought to the castle, and soon this marvelous refuge becomes their playground. 

The castle has a hidden room that can grant a single wish, but there are rules to be followed, and breaking them will have dire consequences. As Kokoro and her new acquaintances spend more time in their new sanctuary, they begin to unlock the castle’s secrets and, tentatively, each other’s. 

Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a mesmerizing, heart-warming novel about the unexpected rewards of embracing human connection.

384 pages
Published July 5, 2022

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The premise of Lonely Castle in the Mirror is one that I think a lot of bullied kids have thought about at some point in their lives. Escaping the struggles of day-to-day life with a little magic, finding people who are pretty different from you but you all generally become friends because you all understand what it's like to be different, to be misunderstood and outcast. They understand you, even if they don't always agree with you. As someone who was bullied to the point of school refusal myself, I can relate very easily to the setup this book provides.

Of course, the book might be cathartic but dull if this was all there was to the story. The sanctuary for the protagonist, Kokoro, and the other misfits who have also made their way to this strange castle, slowly becomes less of a sanctuary over time, with the strange rules that must be followed, and the threat of danger if they poke their nose where it doesn't belong. And yet, poking around is exactly what they must do to solve the mystery of the castle. They are only allowed to be in the castle between 9 AM and 5 PM, and anyone remaining in the castle after that point will be hunted and eaten by a giant wolf monster. They only have that time span, every day for a year, to find a magical key that will grant the finder a wish. And all of them, every single person who found the strange glowing doorway that allowed them access to the castle, has a deep wish that they want fulfilled.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror is 1 half fairy tale and 1 half magical realism, combining to a deeply emotional look at the way mental illness is treated. Or specifically, not treated. Mental health services in this part of the world aren't great a lot of the time, but they're still a lot better than in Japan, where it seems like a lot of it boils down to, "Just try to not have a mental illness." The onus is placed on the individual to not be sick, rather than placed on the community to understand and help people who are sick. But even when some resources are in place, there can be a social barrier in place that prevents people from getting the help they need, or even recognizing that they need help. When we aren't taught good ways to express ourselves, a question of, "Why not try just leaving the house for half an hour?" can easily be met with a panicked shutdown when the person in question can't properly articulate why leaving the house is such a scary thing.

Growing awareness exists both in Japan and in the wider world about the issue of hikikomori, usually translated as shut-ins, adults who forsake the outside world and stay in their rooms or apartments indefinitely. Often supported by parents who feel that they have no choice but to care for their child, even if societally, that child "should" have gotten a job and be supporting themselves now. It's a multifaceted problem that has no quick fix. Maybe bullying at school or work has caused the problem. Maybe being on the spectrum made things worse. Maybe it's depression, anxiety, or a combination of the two. But very often, they and we see "the problem" as the person, not their circumstance. "The problem: is that they're not conforming to social norms, they're acting strange, they're a burden on their loved ones. Rarely do we ask or seek to understand what's happening from that person's perspective, rather than the perspective of those external to the situation.

Kokoro's school refusal stems from bullying, but because she's young, and the situation is complicated and emotionally-charged, she struggles to explain it to her parents, until everything spirals inward and not only can she not go to school where her bullies will be, but has difficulties even thinking about attending a different school, or going outside where she might run into people who know her. It's a relief for her, then, when she steps through that glowing mirror and into a new place where there are people who don't know her, don't pre-judge her, and who accept her as one of them. Flawed, struggling, and worthy.

I went into Lonely Castle in the Mirror expecting a particular kind of story. I expected a story of someone struggling to overcome anxiety, and then eventually doing so with the help of some new-found friend beyond the mirror. And that did happen, yes, but the story is so much more than merely that. It's complex and nuanced and compassionate. It understands, and it seeks to help readers understand, what it's like to experience that degree of anxiety, to feel disconnected from everything that's supposed to connect you.

And I definitely didn't expect to end the story nearly in tears from the raw emotion written onto every page, the story's conclusion bringing a bittersweet but hopeful ending. An ending only to this story, mind you. Not to the stories of nearly all the characters whose lives we learn about, whose struggles we see painful glimpses of.

I can't write a review that does this book justice. I really can't. You can't begin to understand the number of times I tried to do so and ended up erasing whole paragraphs because what I wrote felt either overblown or inadequate. Lonely Castle in the Mirror is an outstretched hand to those who feel unseen and unloved, a hand that comforts them and tells them, "Yes, it can get better. Not just for you, but for others. Especially if you try to help them." The ending was beautiful, the mystery of the castle, and the children who were called to it, was satisfying and emotional. Even through the sections that painfully resonated with me, I loved every moment I spent with Lonely Castle in the Mirror, and I hope you will too. From one bullied anxiety-riddled outcast to another, I hope a mirror starts shining for you, and you find everything you need within.

Episode Thirteen - Craig DiLouie

 

About the Book

Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost hunting experts.

Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter's holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It's also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode Thirteen—and how everything went terribly, horribly wrong.

464 pages
Published January 24, 2023

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Ghost-hunting TV shows are a guilty pleasure of mine. Most of them are too sensational for my liking, but I'll still watch them sometimes. My favourite ones, though, are ones that attempt to approach ghost-hunting reasonably scientifically. It's one thing to bring along a ouija board and claim that the movements are due to spirits, but it's another thing entirely to regularly measure electromagnetic fields and notice a correlation between EMF spikes and strange potentially supernatural activity. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, adherence to the scientific method is still respectable.

Episode Thirteen presents us with one such show, Fade to Black, where the research team is comprised of people who believe, people who don't, and people who just kind of need a job. It's not enough to investigate potentially haunted locations, though. With Fade to Black being a TV show, the crew needs to consider not just what interests them, but also what might interest viewers. Keeping the ratings up and the show fresh means more funding to do what they love, so they have to walk that fine line of compromise. So it seems like a bit of a dream come true when Fade to Black gets the opportunity to investigate a very famous location, one with a history of strange paranormal experiments done in the 70s, one that the show's head, Matt Kirklin, has had his eye on for some time. They hope to find answers to the mysteries of the building's past, but what they find turns out to be so much darker than they expected.

That last statement isn't exactly surprising. Most books have a, "And then they get in over their heads," plot at some point. In a bit of a meta twist, it keeps the book's "ratings" fresh. It keeps people reading, to see the twists and turns.

Episode Thirteen tells its story through journal entries, text message threads, and transcribed audio, a full documentation of the crew's experiences in Foundation House. While DiLouie could have employed third-person omniscient, or third-person limited while switching character perspectives, and still given the reader access to the thoughts and emotions of each character as well as the story beats, using epistolary storytelling gives everything an extra layer of connection. You read Episode Thirteen feeling like you're actually reading the files and records of real people who participated in the show during its final episode. Complete with all the conflict and drama you'd expect. The characters don't always get along, and even the husband-and-wife team of Matt and Claire has a lot of friction, as their approaches to the show and what they want from their lives. It also echoes the found-footage horror genre and brings it to the page instead of the screen, which I can appreciate. (I'm also a fan of bad found-footage horror movies. They're a different sort of guilty pleasure.)

For my part, I found Matt and Claire to be the most interesting characters. Fade to Black is their show, for the most part, and they each have a different role to play that's complementary while also being contradictory. Matt's a true believer, he goes into things hoping to find evidence of ghosts due to a childhood incident he couldn't explain. Claire is a skeptic, and uses her science background to debunk things as much as she can. This sounds like it would make for a lot of back-and-forth arguing, and sometimes that does happen, but it also serves to strengthen the show and the investigations, ensuring that every potential explanation for an event is investigated scientifically. If science can't explain something, then it's assumed to be paranormal in origin. And I liked that dynamic, even when it led to personal friction, because I love seeing science in my ghost-hunting.

It's not that the other characters were uninteresting, though. But I found Claire and Matt the most compelling. There were times when it seemed like other characters were primarily there to provide extra conflict and drama, as they didn't really contribute much else to the story.

At a certain point, Episode Thirteen goes from exciting and surprising to being bleak and claustrophobic and full of dread, where the characters are absolutely in over their heads and the full weight of what they've uncovered begins to take a toll. DiLouie did a really good job of conveying this atmosphere; I've read other books that feel like they're trying to do that but don't quite stick the landing. It was good to see it so well done here, and I appreciate the kind of effort it must have taken to not only build that tension but also to do it in a way that still worked within the confines of epistolary storytelling. I'm strangely a fan of bleak endings in horror fiction, though I can see how that tonal shift might not work well for all readers.

If you enjoy ghost-hunting shows and haunted house stories, then Episode Thirteen is probably going to be a book you enjoy. It might be over 400 pages, but the story goes so quickly that it feels like a much shorter book, while still cramming in a lot of character development and plot. The combination of modern technology and psychedelic 1970s experiments works quite well, and I was impressed enough with DiLouie's storytelling that I now want to find more of his books to read. If they're anything like Episode Thirteen, I'll be in for a flawed but overall enjoyable experience.