![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glaurungDecades ago, I came across volumes 2 and 3 of the Sorcery Hall Trilogy in a bookstore. They were by Suzy McKee Charnas, author of the amazing Holdfast Chronicles, so I bought them instantly. And then they sat on my shelf unread for ages as I never got around to buying volume 1.
Earlier this year, Charnas died, and I decided it was time to fill the holes in my collection of her books. I finally got volume 1, and I also got something called "The Kingdom of Kevin Malone." And today, after many delays, I have finally finished reading the last of them.
The Sorcery Hall books (The Bronze King, the Silver Glove, the Golden Thread) are all excellent 80's YA urban fantasies set in New York City. It's not a trilogy so much as a three book series - there are references to events in previous books, but each instalment is a complete story by itself and can be appreciated as such. I guess I didn't have to wait to read them after all.
Charnas's Sorcery Hall tales of teenage Tina's run ins with magical beings and malevolent wizards are the grounded and gritty sort of urban fantasy. Magic exists, there's a sorcerer's guild that Tina's grandmother has retired from, but magic is an intrusion into the real world, a disruptive force that needs to be contained and sent back where it belongs. The stories are good, I enjoyed them and recommend them highly to anyone searching for 20th century YA urban fantasy.
And then picked up "The Kingdom of Kevin Malone," published in the early 90's, and... I'm not at all sure what to think. It's a portal fantasy - young Amy is roller skating in Central Park when a boy pins a brooch to her sleeve. She recognizes it as one stolen from her by a neighbourhood bully years ago, and recognizes the boy as the bully himself. She chases him down the path and through one of the pedestrian underpasses that dot the park. On the other side of the tunnel, though, is a fantasy world, with a quest and a prophecy in which she plays an important role.
The bully is Kevin Malone, and the fantasy world, while very real, is the creation of his imagination, a little boy's mash up of all the extruded fantasy product he read to escape from his grim childhood. He's grown into a teenager, but the land is still his creation, and he is the destined prince of the land, but he needs the help of Amy and her friends to find a magical sword (which is hidden back in the real world) that will enable him to defeat the Big Bad and assume his place as reigning prince.
{eta: to clarify what I say below, the novel is not at all XFP, but Amy talks about how the world and the story are clearly inspired by such).
On the one hand, it's a YA adventure story, set in an original fantasy world with interesting fantasy beings, unlike extruded fantasy product, but Kevin's story (what little we see of it) is taken directly from that XFP. On the other hand, it's an interrogation and subversion of XFP stories. Kevin is not a likable or sympathetic character. Here's a quote from just before the end. Amy has survived a battle between monstrous Famishers and the Elves. She and a mortally injured Elf (who are not at all like typical XFP elves) talk:
Which is great. I was on board for Amy to put down all the evil in the land, including Kevin. Instead, though, she fulfils the prophecy. Kevin, who is not a good guy, gets to become prince of his play kingdom, filled with real beings with feelings who have to suffer being the extras and sidekicks in his story, and Amy goes home to her family.
It's a profoundly dissatisfying novel, and I'm not completely sure if Charnas intended it that way, or if the power of the tropes she was using prevented her from writing a better, more subversive ending.
Earlier this year, Charnas died, and I decided it was time to fill the holes in my collection of her books. I finally got volume 1, and I also got something called "The Kingdom of Kevin Malone." And today, after many delays, I have finally finished reading the last of them.
The Sorcery Hall books (The Bronze King, the Silver Glove, the Golden Thread) are all excellent 80's YA urban fantasies set in New York City. It's not a trilogy so much as a three book series - there are references to events in previous books, but each instalment is a complete story by itself and can be appreciated as such. I guess I didn't have to wait to read them after all.
Charnas's Sorcery Hall tales of teenage Tina's run ins with magical beings and malevolent wizards are the grounded and gritty sort of urban fantasy. Magic exists, there's a sorcerer's guild that Tina's grandmother has retired from, but magic is an intrusion into the real world, a disruptive force that needs to be contained and sent back where it belongs. The stories are good, I enjoyed them and recommend them highly to anyone searching for 20th century YA urban fantasy.
And then picked up "The Kingdom of Kevin Malone," published in the early 90's, and... I'm not at all sure what to think. It's a portal fantasy - young Amy is roller skating in Central Park when a boy pins a brooch to her sleeve. She recognizes it as one stolen from her by a neighbourhood bully years ago, and recognizes the boy as the bully himself. She chases him down the path and through one of the pedestrian underpasses that dot the park. On the other side of the tunnel, though, is a fantasy world, with a quest and a prophecy in which she plays an important role.
The bully is Kevin Malone, and the fantasy world, while very real, is the creation of his imagination, a little boy's mash up of all the extruded fantasy product he read to escape from his grim childhood. He's grown into a teenager, but the land is still his creation, and he is the destined prince of the land, but he needs the help of Amy and her friends to find a magical sword (which is hidden back in the real world) that will enable him to defeat the Big Bad and assume his place as reigning prince.
{eta: to clarify what I say below, the novel is not at all XFP, but Amy talks about how the world and the story are clearly inspired by such).
On the one hand, it's a YA adventure story, set in an original fantasy world with interesting fantasy beings, unlike extruded fantasy product, but Kevin's story (what little we see of it) is taken directly from that XFP. On the other hand, it's an interrogation and subversion of XFP stories. Kevin is not a likable or sympathetic character. Here's a quote from just before the end. Amy has survived a battle between monstrous Famishers and the Elves. She and a mortally injured Elf (who are not at all like typical XFP elves) talk:
"We were made, as everything here was made," the elf was saying dreamily, her breath stirring my hair, "by Kavian Prince himself, whose world this is. Did you think we did not know this? Elves have secret knowledge, that is one of the things that makes us elves, and what more important secret knowledge is there than this?"
I relaxed, awed by the gift of frank speech from this royal creature. It was as if I had earned a touch of the beauty and enchantment of the Fayre Farre, having just had a good serving of its horrors.
"My blood runs out of me," the elf's voice sighed distantly, "but not my hatred, that I keep. I hate the rules we live under by command of Kavian Prince. I hate this war made to show himself off, meanwhile ensnaring and destroying us. I hate the shallow world he made for us, and I hate the way it alters at his whim, or against it, but always in relation to him."
Which is great. I was on board for Amy to put down all the evil in the land, including Kevin. Instead, though, she fulfils the prophecy. Kevin, who is not a good guy, gets to become prince of his play kingdom, filled with real beings with feelings who have to suffer being the extras and sidekicks in his story, and Amy goes home to her family.
It's a profoundly dissatisfying novel, and I'm not completely sure if Charnas intended it that way, or if the power of the tropes she was using prevented her from writing a better, more subversive ending.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-20 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-20 07:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-20 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-20 07:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-20 07:54 pm (UTC)