This book had a lot of really interesting concepts, but unfortunately, it failed to pull them all together into one cohesive story, at least in my mind. The book tells two stories: the first is the tale of a little boy experiencing shifts in reality, and the second is the tale of the characters he and his sister are playing in Mutes & Norms (their version of D&D). However, the two stories barely relate to one another at all; in fact, though it's never explicitly stated, it feels as though the story of the fantastical characters diverges from the campaign that the children would be playing and goes off on its own tangent toward the end.

Of course, I also have thoughts on each story individually, so I will go through them one at a time.

The "realistic" story of Jack and his twin sister Jilly was the more compelling of the two for me. I enjoyed reading about the twins' relationship and their mind-reading abilities with each other, though I had wished there was somewhat less fighting between the two of them and more "us against the world" solidarity. This story focused on how Jack dealt with the perception that his realities were changing and that he was the only one that could remember the previous ones, which was definitely an interesting concept; I'd have been happy to have read an entire book only about this. However, these sections of the narration spent a lot of time circling around that idea of the changing realities, summing it up for the reader over and over every time new evidence was gathered; this got a little repetitive-feeling after a while. Meanwhile, other aspects of this paranormal element remained all too vague; Jack mentioned the sensation of a larger being reaching out for him, and this idea took him down a road of paranoia that eventually led to a very dark place. I wanted to see this paranoia more justified with actions. This larger entity never actually manipulated anything or in any other way proved itself to be real. It was only ever observed as a feeling Jack had, and that wasn't enough for me considering that feeling led him to killing his family. He never once even questioned whether the large entity was actually real or not. For him to take that kind of extreme action, I wanted him to see proof it existed and was doing bad things to him, even if the proof would look questionable to anyone but him.

The fantasy story was the harder sell for me. It follows Kestral, an airie (bird-like mutant), as he embarks on his coming-of-age adventure with members of the four other existing mutant types in this world. The main reason I didn't connect with this story as well was because the world-building was confusing and scattered. The first chapter or so of Kestral's perspective was hard to follow because it was so steeped in a culture I didn't yet understand, and while I read a lot of speculative fiction and thus have relatively high patience for that sort of thing, I felt even more frustrated when the facts explained to me remained still somewhat arcane and confusing. I had particular trouble with the concept of "invirting," which was explained in one way but soon seemed to cease following those specific rules. Perhaps it did follow rules, and those rules may have been very clear in the author's mind, but they weren't in mine. Invirting almost just seemed like the hand-wavey way to explain away plot twists--and boy, were there plot twists. Too many, in my book, for the last third of this story seemed to just go off on a tangent that felt relatively unrelated to the rest. By the ending, I really wasn't feeling the significance that I knew I was intended to feel.

Another problem I had with Kestral's culture was that the world-building felt thematically scattered. Largely, his world revolved around a religion based on odds and dice, which was clever considering it was meant to be the world of a tabletop RPG. However, part of that religion also incorporated "sutures," which were lines in their holy book that came with accompanying incision lines which everyone carved into their own flesh during their worship. This aspect of the religion seemed completely disconnected from the rest of the religion itself as well as from the themes of the rest of the book, and I couldn't understand why it was included. There was also a lot of high-tech gadgetry in this world, which I was okay with to an extent but which I think could have used more space to develop.

In the end, I think that both of these stories would have individually made good books if given the time and space to be properly developed. I'd have loved the story of Jack to be turned in a paranormal and/or psychological thriller, and the story of Kestral could have made a good fantasy or sci-fi had all the relevant elements been focused on from the beginning. However, I don't think they contribute to each other enough to justify coexisting in one book, at least in this state, and the need for the two of them to share space also seems to have taken away from their individual development. ( )

A quest novel set in an alternative earth in which magic works.

The first un-finished book of the year:11 year old twins Jack and Jilly are staying at the family beach house with their 16 year old sister and their Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy works for a gaming company and has invented a D&D type game called Mutes and Norms. (the story takes place in the mid-70s) Chapters alternate between the real world and the Mute world, and certain characters in the real world are somehow linked to characters in the mute world - when something happens physically to a character in one world it also happens to the linked character in the other world. Jack and Jilly discover that their uncle and sister have an incestuous relationship. Jack also discovers that he has the ability to do "do-overs" - he can alter reality so that what he wants to change actually happened and no one else remenbers the first reality. The gaming aspect was interesting but the story lines became confusing with all the different worlds and realities to keep track of -- and then -- Jack and Jilly, the 11 year old twins, have sex -- in three different realities -- all in the space of a paragraph. I decided then and there to stop reading this book. I was 3/4 of the way through the book, but nothing, not even finding out which character is the traitor, could make me continue reading. Avoid this book. ( )

http://www.fantasybookspot.com/node/1368 ( )