Book Review: Dreams and Shadows, by C. Robert Cargill
Faeries, wizards, and djinn in Austin, TX
Harper Voyager, 2013, 448 pages
A brilliantly crafted modern tale from acclaimed film critic and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill - part Neil Gaiman, part Guillermo Del Toro, part William S. Burroughs - that charts the lives of two boys from their star-crossed childhood in the realm of magic and mystery to their anguished adulthoods
There is another world than our own - one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares - where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same.
Dreams and Shadows takes us beyond this veil. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish. But while Ewan and Colby left the Limestone Kingdom as children, it has never forgotten them. And in a world where angels relax on rooftops, whiskey-swilling genies argue metaphysics with foul-mouthed wizards, and monsters in the shadows feed on fear, you can never outrun your fate.
Dreams and Shadows is a stunning and evocative debut about the magic and monsters in our world and in our self.
I enjoyed C. Robert Cargill's robo-apocalypse novels Day Zero and Sea of Rust, so now I am checking out his older works. Dreams and Shadows was his debut novel. It's an urban fantasy full of faeries, djinn, and fallen angels, set in Austin, TX. It would have been a great In Nomine campaign.
Two human boys, Ewan and Colby, take different paths into the magical world. Ewan is stolen by faeries as a baby and replaced with a changeling child. He grows up among the fey of the Limestone Kingdom, believing that on his tenth birthday he will join the fairy court.
Colby is an ordinary kid, maybe not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, with a neglectful mother. He meets a cursed djinn who for reasons of his own wants to take Colby on a walkabout adventure. When the two of them stumble into the Limestone Kingdom, Colby and Ewan become friends. Colby finds out what the faeries really intend for Ewan and makes a wish hoping to save his new friend. This results in bad things, but Ewan and Colby are able to leave with their lives.
Many years later, Colby is a lonely wizard, and Ewan is an aspiring rock star and part-time bartender who has forgotten his fairy childhood, but the Limestone Kingdom hasn't forgotten them.
As a debut novel, Dreams and Shadows is a bit messy. It blends a lot of things together: classic urban fantasy, with magical creatures hiding in modern society where only a few people can see them; dark fairy tales (tithes, curses, the Wild Hunt, Changelings, Nixies and Redcaps); and a lighthearted tone and humorous dialog alternating with violence and gore, sometimes on the same page. It's part fantasy, part horror, part wizard bildungsroman. The tone swerves a lot.
The faeries are the main antagonists, and Cargill has drawn on plenty of classic faerie lore in planting Seelie and Unseelie in the middle of Texas while still making them magical and dark. Faeries aren't all evil, but they are all capricious and alien; humans rarely walk away from faerie encounters unscathed. Later in the book, when Ewan and Colby both open up cans of whoop-ass on the faeries, it's a bloodbath that almost makes you feel sorry for the fey, except that most of them have been cheerfully drowning, abducting, or mutilating humans or else driving them mad for years. Arguably, this is their nature, but the point is made throughout the book that all beings have choices and choices have consequences. The morality is very gray here.
Besides faeries, there are djinn, demons, angels (fallen and otherwise), and, uh, Coyote, just because. But absolutely no dragons.
Dreams and Shadows is a book about revenge and being careful what you wish for. Faeries may be pretty or ugly, but they're mostly mean fuckers. And djinn are bastards too, because seriously, how can you hold a nine-year-old responsible for the consequences of his wishes?
My nostalgia for In Nomine probably made me like this semi-coherent book about all sorts of magical beings hanging out in Austin, TX more than I otherwise might have, but it's entertaining enough that I want to read the sequel.
Also by C. Robert Cargill: My reviews of Day Zero and Sea of Rust.
My complete list of book reviews.
Harper Voyager, 2013, 448 pages
A brilliantly crafted modern tale from acclaimed film critic and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill - part Neil Gaiman, part Guillermo Del Toro, part William S. Burroughs - that charts the lives of two boys from their star-crossed childhood in the realm of magic and mystery to their anguished adulthoods
There is another world than our own - one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares - where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same.
Dreams and Shadows takes us beyond this veil. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish. But while Ewan and Colby left the Limestone Kingdom as children, it has never forgotten them. And in a world where angels relax on rooftops, whiskey-swilling genies argue metaphysics with foul-mouthed wizards, and monsters in the shadows feed on fear, you can never outrun your fate.
Dreams and Shadows is a stunning and evocative debut about the magic and monsters in our world and in our self.
I enjoyed C. Robert Cargill's robo-apocalypse novels Day Zero and Sea of Rust, so now I am checking out his older works. Dreams and Shadows was his debut novel. It's an urban fantasy full of faeries, djinn, and fallen angels, set in Austin, TX. It would have been a great In Nomine campaign.
Two human boys, Ewan and Colby, take different paths into the magical world. Ewan is stolen by faeries as a baby and replaced with a changeling child. He grows up among the fey of the Limestone Kingdom, believing that on his tenth birthday he will join the fairy court.
Colby is an ordinary kid, maybe not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, with a neglectful mother. He meets a cursed djinn who for reasons of his own wants to take Colby on a walkabout adventure. When the two of them stumble into the Limestone Kingdom, Colby and Ewan become friends. Colby finds out what the faeries really intend for Ewan and makes a wish hoping to save his new friend. This results in bad things, but Ewan and Colby are able to leave with their lives.
Many years later, Colby is a lonely wizard, and Ewan is an aspiring rock star and part-time bartender who has forgotten his fairy childhood, but the Limestone Kingdom hasn't forgotten them.
As a debut novel, Dreams and Shadows is a bit messy. It blends a lot of things together: classic urban fantasy, with magical creatures hiding in modern society where only a few people can see them; dark fairy tales (tithes, curses, the Wild Hunt, Changelings, Nixies and Redcaps); and a lighthearted tone and humorous dialog alternating with violence and gore, sometimes on the same page. It's part fantasy, part horror, part wizard bildungsroman. The tone swerves a lot.
The faeries are the main antagonists, and Cargill has drawn on plenty of classic faerie lore in planting Seelie and Unseelie in the middle of Texas while still making them magical and dark. Faeries aren't all evil, but they are all capricious and alien; humans rarely walk away from faerie encounters unscathed. Later in the book, when Ewan and Colby both open up cans of whoop-ass on the faeries, it's a bloodbath that almost makes you feel sorry for the fey, except that most of them have been cheerfully drowning, abducting, or mutilating humans or else driving them mad for years. Arguably, this is their nature, but the point is made throughout the book that all beings have choices and choices have consequences. The morality is very gray here.
Besides faeries, there are djinn, demons, angels (fallen and otherwise), and, uh, Coyote, just because. But absolutely no dragons.
Dreams and Shadows is a book about revenge and being careful what you wish for. Faeries may be pretty or ugly, but they're mostly mean fuckers. And djinn are bastards too, because seriously, how can you hold a nine-year-old responsible for the consequences of his wishes?
My nostalgia for In Nomine probably made me like this semi-coherent book about all sorts of magical beings hanging out in Austin, TX more than I otherwise might have, but it's entertaining enough that I want to read the sequel.
Also by C. Robert Cargill: My reviews of Day Zero and Sea of Rust.
My complete list of book reviews.