So after finished Widdershins, wherein de Lint has written a very nice finale for two of his favourite characters, what is the appeal of a prequel novel looking at one of them during her college years? Actually quite a lot.
Promises to Keep follows perennial favourite Jilly Coppercorn in an earlier time in her life, shortly after she came to Newford in the first place, and works as both a great little story in its own right, and also a pretty great jumping-on point for new readers who may not want to go all the way back to The Dreaming Place, written nearly two decades earlier, as well as a story that acknowledges that although very interested in the magical aspects of the world, Jilly spends the first part of the series of books with no direct contact, only hearing about this world through the stories of her friends.
The story is short and sweet, focusing on issues of lost friends and things that may have been and left me feeling quite satisfied and looking forward to reading more.
Charles de Lint's 2004 YA novel The Blue Girl, follows two best friends Imogene and Maxine, through a year in Newford's Redding High. Throughout the novel the girls get involved in the world of Faerie (pretty much a requirement in a Newford-based story), and although there are a few familiar faces (Christy Riddell for one), this is mostly a new story with new characters in a familiar setting.
The book rotates between three narratives, Imogene, a new girl in school (and Newford), hoping to have a fresh start, Maxine, a quiet student looking for a friend, and Adrian, the ghost of a boy who died in the school years ago.
What I really liked in the story was just how small it was - there are no massive demi-gods or mystical creatures like in the Jack of Kinrowan books (which I also loved), just two friends trying to make it through the school year and getting caught up in something bigger than they expected. What surprised me the most in the novel was the depiction of Maxine's mother, who beings the novel as an almost cartoon-ish example of the controlling mom, but then changes throughout the story into a fully fleshed-out believable parent.
In the end the book was a lot of fun, and I hope I find these characters popping up in future works by de LInt.
Charles de Lint's 2003 novel Spirits in the Wires is one of those delightful fantasy novels that works both on it's own merits and as an interesting look at how we viewed The Internet in the early 2000s. The novel, based in his fictional city of Newford, connects Christy Riddell, a renowned folklorist (and regular Newford supporting character) to two women, Christianna Tree and Saskia Madding, both of whom come from strange beginnings and are about to go on a journey that melds the World Wide Web with de Lint's faerie mythology.
In the novel a virus has struck the Wordwood, a popular website that works like a sort of sentient Wikipedia, and has been mentioned in any number of de Lint's other works over the years. Initially shutting down the website, the virus mutates and soon regular users of the site disappear in a sweeping world-wide event that connects the novel's primary characters with a number of others from de Lint's world.
The story works as a journey, but travels back and forth between three groups, giving the reader a number of well-developed characters to follow and some pretty amazing wonders along the way. I don't want to get into too many specifics as much of the fun of the novel comes from the various twists and turns of the plot, but it is definitely well worth the read.
Charles de Lint's fourth short story collection set in Newford mixes perspectives (a number of the stories are told in first person), characters (both old and new), and ideas - including a ghost story unlike any I've read before "The Witching Hour", as well as stories of Pixie infestation via the internet, sequels to a number of favourite short stories from across his career to date and the addition of the novella Seven Wild Sisters as a bonus.
As always, the stories are a great deal of fun, mixed with terror and pathos, and had me looking forward to my next book from de Lint.
Charles de Lint's Waifs and Strays sits comfortable between a collection for Young Adults and a collection about Young Adults. Although four of the stories appear in other short story collections by the author, this collection focuses specifically on teen protagonists, and move throughout many of the worlds previously created by de Lint, whether in realms of high fantasy, the world introduced in his science fiction novel Svaha, stories he contributed to the Borderlands series and many stories set in Newford.
For me, the standouts were the two stories about the Apple, a teen vampire (which sounds horrible when I write it out that way) who is desperate to understand her new condition and hopeful for her future. Unlike the Twilight series, there is very little glorification of the vampire condition in these stories and de Lint works to get the reader very invested in Apple and her family.
In addition to some really great stories, each entry also includes an introduction (ranging from a paragraph to a page) giving background info for the story as well as suggestions as to how it fits in his increasingly expanding fictional world.
A great introductory read to de Lint and although I had read four of the stories before, I happy reread each of them, finding them to be like old friends I hadn't seen in a while, but was happy to spend time with again.
When reading any series, in any genre, you eventually come across a book that works to put everything you've read together, showing you a perspective on the world you haven't seen before, sometimes this happens quite early (like Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three - book two of his Dark Tower series, or Louis L'Amour's The Sackett Brand - book five of his series focusing on the Sackett family).
For me, Charles de Lint does this in his tenth book focusing on his fiction city of Newford The Onion Girl, which focuses finally and specifically on artist/waitress/fierce woman Jilly Coppercorn, and finally grants her the wish she's had in all of his books, to see the world of magic; of course, seeing the larger world has it's own costs as well...
The book begins with Jilly awakening after a hit-and-run car accident, stuck in a hospital bed and in significant pain, and as she is now the person who needs support, all of her friends (and many of the leads from previous de Lint novels and short stories), rally around her in her time of need. But the accident, which seems to have put a complete stop to her life in Newford, seems to have awoken something else in her, as she now begins to travel in the realm of the spirits while sleeping, letting her see true magic, but also potentially stopping her from focusing on her life in Newford.
As a parallel story, the book introduces Raylene Carter, a woman with a history similar to Jilly's and who took a decidedly different path. Raylene is fun, brash, and more than a little dangerous, and her story was a really nice counterpoint to Jilly's.
The novel does include a previously released short story "In the House of my enemy" (1993), which fits nicely in the narrative and gives necessary backstory to readers new to de Lint's work.
A great book
Finally moving out of the '90s and into the 2000s, Charles de Lint's Forests of the Heart is a pretty fantastic way to start the new decade.
The novel, set in his fictional Canadian city of Newford, does feature a few of his fan favourite characters, but in this novel they are secondary to a new group, one including artists, musicians, a witch, and some very kind people who get in way over their heads.
As with most of his fiction set in Newford, de Lint focuses on how regular folk interact with the mythic, being creatures or events from beyond our world (but often also from just around the corner), but as with his best work, this focuses largely on his human characters and their all-too-human issues.
Two of the main characters, a used-record store owner named Hunter Cole, and an artist/social worker named Ellie Jones, actually begin with very little in terms of fantasy elements in their lives, neither are the latest in a family lineages of healers (another character in the novel) or have a family history involved with a group of creatures simply called "The Gentry" (that falls to two other characters). A Big part of what I love about this novel is how well de Lint manages a large cast of characters, deftly switching back and forth between them, without ever losing the inertia of the story.
Forests of the Heart is a well crafted fantasy novel, something I might suggest to bring fans of Urban Fantasy into some of the amazing things the genre of Fantasy can bring to a story.
Charles de Lint's third collection of short stories set in his fictional city of Newford, includes many reoccurring characters, including favourite Jilly Coppercorn, brothers Christy and Geordie Riddell, and the Crow Girls (featured in Someplace to be Flying). Many of the stories in this third collection focus on death and loss, but de Lint tends to end his stories on a hopeful note.
Standout's for me were "Saskia" and "The Fields beyond the Fields" both featuring Christy Riddell (Newfords analogue of real-world Urban Legend collector Jan Harold Brunvand) and a woman who may be something else entirely.
A fun find for me was "China Doll" a story originally published in an anthology for The Crow franchise, which, although a little at odds with de Lint's Urban Fantasy setting, was still an interesting visit to James O'Barr's original work.
A fun read!
Charles de Lint's 1998 novel, Someplace to be Flying begins innocuously enough; a cabdriver witnessing a mugging decides to get involved and ends up getting shot for his troubles. Then, along with the mugging victim (a photojournalist on her way home), he is saved by two young women who appear to be able to fly.
de Lint has always excelled at stories wherein people meet the supernatural and end up shifting their views on the world, but Someplace to be Flying goes much further than this, adding in an entire hidden populace on Earth and drops both characters into the middle of a city wide war. The book actually takes it's time setting up the main events of the story, spending nearly a hundred pages introducing its ensemble and using another fifty for backstory before everything begins to move forward very quickly.
The story is set in Newford, includes a few characters from previous novels and short stories, but is largely populated by new characters, including a set of sisters that are like nothing I've read before (and I've been reading fantasy novels since the mid-eighties), and immerses the reader into an experience including emails, admittance forms and more.
The story works incredibly well at setting up its own mythology and plays fair with all of its charactes (although I have to admit to losing track of exactly who was who twice). A fascinating read and one that already has me looking forward to his next work.
Charles de Lint's Trader (1997) was, for me, a pretty great way to use fantasy elements to tell a story about starting over. The novel focuses on a luthier (stringed instrument creator) named Max Trader who wakes up one day inhabiting someone else's body. The story follows Max as he tries to come to terms with what has happened, attempts to put things back the way they were and tries to stop the man who seems to be ruining his old lie.
What I really loved about the book was how it showed the interconnections between all the folk in Max and Johnny's (the other half of the body swap) lives, and how this change had long lasting effects in all sorts of places.
De Lint mainstay Jilly Coppercorn appears in the novel in a smaller role, as do a few other characters from his previous novels and stories, but Trader largely focuses on Max, Johnny, two young women, a runaway and her mother, and deftly moves back and forth between all of these characters to tell an intruding tale of secret lives, starting over and the power of dreams and will.
In the end, much of the novel follows themes of how people deal with change that is beyond their control, asking whether you have the inner strength and drive to flow with change or stay forever focused on what you feel you are owed.
Another great read.
Charles De Lint’s second collection of short fiction set in Newford felt much more interesting to my than Dreams Underfoot (which I also quite liked), with the first collection I was pretty enamoured of how he was building this fascinating city setting and how he would cross multiple characters over throughout stories, switching timelines, perspectives, etc., but with The Ivory and the Horn, although there is a lot of that too, the stories move into some pretty dark territory, and allow the reader to read about some deep real world issues (such as falling in love with a good friend, the effectiveness of social work, dealing with a friend’s depression), and uses fantasy elements to draw the reader in.
For me, stories like “Dead Man’s Shoes”, a vengeance-based ghost story worked great as effective horror, but others like “The Wishing Well” showed exactly how insidious a crisis can be and how easily people might ignore it. The collection moves easily from issues involving homelessness to urban fantasy (my favourite of the latter is “Mr. Truepenney’s Book Emporium and Gallery” which asks how responsible we are for our dreams.
A great collection, and definitely had me looking forward to reading my next de Lint book.
Charles de Lint's Memory & Dream (1994) may be the most ambitious of his books I've read to date. The story takes place in his fictional city of Newford, includes characters he's used in previous works, and focuses on three main characters over the course of twenty years, following them in a non-linear format through college and later as professionals.
Much of the story focuses on Isabelle (Izzy) Copley, an artist who trained under a reclusive celebrity in the fine art world and after a tragic incident spends twenty years living in near isolation until called upon by a friend from help.
Much of the novel focuses on the power of art and the creation process, whether in terms of painting or writing, and uses Isabelle's ability to bring creatures she's painted to life (she calls it "bringing across") as a way to examine the creation process.
Like most of de Lint's novels, there is a fair bit of mythology mixed in with action, adventure and romance, but I was quite surprised to find just how emotionally affecting I found the book.
An excellent read and one that definitely has me looking forward to the next book by this fascinating author.
Since March of 2014, at the rate of one book a month, I've been working my way through the works of Canadian fantasy author Charles de Lint. Beginning with stories clearly set in a high fantasy realm, over the course of his works he has moved his settings to a fictional Canadian city called Newford, which also happens to be the setting of his first short story collection, Dreams Underfoot (1993).
To be fair, the book could have easily been titled, Dreams Underfoot: The Jilly Coppercorn stories, as his artist character Jilly appears as a main or secondary character in about three quarters of the collection. But as Jilly is an open minded woman, trying to see the magic in all things, I was quite happy to have her along for the collection.
The stories move from funny to heartbreaking and back again, some of them include very graphic imagery, but each of them feels very human to me, focusing (as de Lint often does) on how people react when exposed to the otherworldly. A fascinating introduction to his style of Urban fantasy, and a great place for newcomers to his fiction to begin.
Charles de Lint's second horror novel, From a Whisper to a Scream (1992) also happens to be his first novel set in Newford, which, as I'm reading his books in publication order, doesn't mean much to me, but for fans of his Urban Fantasy work, it may be a title which slipped past your radar.
As with Angel of Darkness, the book has some very dark material in; and the fact that it's dedicated to crime writer Andrew Vachss may give you an idea of the direction of that material.
The story focuses on a series of murders, which appear to have been cased by a dead man, and the people attempting to stop it; ranging from the police and journalists, to figures in the community and a runaway girl with a dark past. I found the book to be compulsively readable, and blazed through it quickly.
Sometimes fiction takes me to very dark places, but within them the light of hope and love can shine very brightly.
A great read.
