This was extraordinarily bizarre, and very, very good.
When I started this, it was with an ebook ARC I got from the publisher. It was, I was sad to see, not illustrated, and it was painfully clear to me that I was missing a lot. So a big thank you to the people at Reactor/Tordotcom for answering my plea and getting me a physical ARC with the illustrations.
Speaking of illustrations: here are some examples of the artwork, along with commentary by Pechaček on where he drew his inspiration from, and the text of the first chapter of the book. There is an illustration at the beginning of each chapter, almost a visual epigraph, depicting (very stylistically) a scene that takes place within that chapter. There is also a full-page illustration at the beginning of each book within The West Passage. Having tried to read it without those, the book is definitely missing something (sorry, audiobook readers).
The protagonists of this are Pell and Kew, two young inhabitants of Grey Tower thrust into positions of power and responsibility before they are ready. Grey Tower is part of “the palace,” which has no other name that is ever mentioned. It is a sprawling city, more than half decayed into ruin, dominated by the Grey, Yellow, Blue, Red, and Black Towers. The city is ruled by the Ladies, strange unknowable beings of wildly varying appearance and unclear but potent powers. As happens every few centuries, the Beast is rising to threaten the palace. Pell and Kew both, and separately, leave the familiar cloisters of the Grey, looking to reach the palace’s rulers in the Black Tower and get help.
Of course it is not so straightforward as that, and as Pell and Kew go off on their respective quests they travel far and wide over the breadth of the palace. They meet many very bizarre things; not only Ladies, but the many and varied inhabitants of the palace, before making their way back to Grey to confront the rising of the Beast.
The illustrations set the tone: Fantastical and mysterious, with a definite feeling of the medieval. It’s never entirely clear what is going on, or why. The strangeness of the palace is normal to Pell and Kew, and they don’t really feel the need to comment on it - it can take some time to figure out just how bizarre it all really is. Not a great book for those who like clear answers and explanations, because you’re basically going to get none. And, fair warning, this book has a lot of sadness in it.
I would call this “New Weird” if I had to pick a genre, but that doesn’t feel quite right. Possibly just because I associate with Jeff VanderMeer, and his stuff all has much more sinister/dangerous overtones than this book does. It also reminds me quite a lot of Walter Moers’ Zamonia books, though with more sinister/dangerous overtones than those books have. But slotting this into a genre just feels wrong, regardless. It’s too unique.
I think this is a love-it-or-hate-it book. I am giving it an easy 5 stars. But if someone were to say to me, “I read it, and WTF was that?” I would understand. Looking forward to hearing others’ opinions when it comes out this summer.
Comes out July 16.
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