Two YA Fantasy Mini-Reviews

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia Wrede

In 2009, I reviewed Book 1 in Wrede's Frontier Magic series, Thirteenth Child. I thought it was very good, especially the idea of adding magic to the settling of the West. But the book's strengths were sometimes overlooked because of a controversy: Wrede did not include Native Americans in her alternate history, and she caught a lot of grief for it. (We can assume, however, that she would have caught a whole different batch of grief for her portrayal of them had she left them in.) I read one of the later interviews with this author during the book promotion period, and she was so fed up with the whole thing that when she was asked if she wanted to talk about it, she replied tersely, "No."

Anyhoo, here's Book 2! Across the Great Barrier doesn't have quite the same sense of emotional tension that characterized the first book, but it is nevertheless a good story. As the book begins, Eff is no longer being persecuted for being a thirteenth child; in fact, she has become something of a hero, which is surprisingly hard on her golden boy twin brother, Lan.

Perhaps that explains why he does something at school that causes all kinds of trouble. Lan also fails to understand why his sister is more interested in studying Aphrikan magic than Avrupan (British/European) magic. As for Eff, she is focused on why she has so much difficulty mastering simple, useful spells. But it is only when Eff goes across the Great Barrier into the wilderness with a research team that she discovers true danger and learns how to handle herself in unexpected situations.

The odd thing about this series is that it has no human villain to contend with—instead, Eff and her friends and family must deal with the strange magical creatures and other, more ordinary threats that lie in the untamed lands of the West. For this reason, I suspect the Frontier Magic books will have more appeal to serious fantasy fans than to those who like their good and evil served up in the form of fluffy unicorns and black-cloaked villains.


Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore

A few years ago, I reviewed Book 3 in the Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series, Highway to Hell. Clement-Moore gives us a new character in this series starter, Texas Gothic. Amy Goodnight is a member of a family of witches, but she tries really hard to be normal. However, when her aunt leaves her in charge of her aunt's ranch, together with her witchy mad scientist sister, Phin, Amy gets a lot more magic than she bargained for. It seems the ranch is haunted, and not by Casper the Friendly Ghost, either.

On top of everything else, a teenage cowboy from the ranch next door is exasperatingly cute and inclined to pick a fight. He doesn't like the fact that Amy's aunt won't give his family an easement in order to build a much-needed bridge. Then there's the archaeological dig happening over on Ben's father's ranch. Of course, you would expect some girl-clashes-with-boy trouble after this little meet cute: Ben's cow attacks Amy's car, and Amy comes running out in her underwear to rescue it. Naturally, they quarrel, whereupon Ben dubs her Underwear Girl. But Ben and Amy will have to get past their initial hostility if they want to combat evils ancient and modern...

The nice thing about this author's books is that they have the kind of lighthearted verve you would expect from a Meg Cabot, yet they have a flair of their own and some clever paranormal plotting that's a decent four or five steps up from the Scooby Doo mysteries. Furthermore, how can you not like a ghost-hunting girl who drives a Mini Cooper and nicknames it Stella?

Note for Worried Parents: Texas Gothic is a book for teens. Yet other than the abovementioned underwear encounter and a little kissing much later in the book, there's nothing of major concern. Oh, there are ghosts and some peril. We've definitely got peril!

A Review of Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

I’ve been looking forward to this book coming out for months! So when I saw it in the bookstore yesterday, I snatched it up, ran home, and read the whole thing straight through. Why, you may ask, such transportations of delight? Well, fantasy is my favorite genre, and Patricia C. Wrede has written some very fun books, most notably the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, starting with Dealing with Dragons. She also coauthored Sorcery and Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot and its sequels with Caroline Stevermer—novels of manners set in an alternate England where magicians are the norm.

Another reason I’ve been dying to read Thirteenth Child is because it clearly falls in the new subgenre I’ve been talking about, rural fantasy. (See my blog entry for January 16: “Move Over, Steampunk!”) With this book, Wrede is starting a new series called Frontier Magic, in which Americans in the 1800s have magicians to help them settle the Wild West (only here they're called Columbians). Wrede’s world is new in other ways, I discovered: the frontier is populated by “natural” animals such as mammoths, bison, and woolly rhinoseroses, along with magical creatures such as steam dragons, spectral bears, and swarming weasels.

On the far side of the plains were mountains, sharp and high, that no one had seen but a few explorers. Papa said that at least ten expeditions had tried to find a way through them to the Pacific Ocean, but only three men had ever come back alive, and they were stark out of their heads. There was a monument in the capital to Lewis and Clark, who headed the first group that went missing, back in 1804. It was more than wild country; it was unknown.

Alternative history, indeed! But there’s more: formerly, magicians led by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin erected the Great Barrier Spell, intended to keep the lethal beasts of the frontier from overrunning and devouring Columbians. Now Eff and her family are moving out to the edge of the frontier, where her father will teach magic at a small college.

Eff is the hero of our story, though she thinks she's its villain. Because she is the thirteenth child, her superstitious uncles and aunts and cousins tell her over and over that she will turn out to be evil and should have been drowned at birth. To make matters worse, her twin Lan is the golden boy, seventh son of a seventh son and mightily magical. Fortunately, he and Eff are very close. But one of the reasons Eff’s parents are moving out west is to get away from the relatives who treat their daughter as if she were cursed.

The story telling has an epic feel, beginning when Eff is five and ending when she is eighteen. Eff and Lan attend a small public school out in the settlement, though Lan is given supplemental lessons to cultivate his gifts. It doesn’t occur to anyone except the amazing Miss Ochiba that Eff might be plenty gifted in her own right. Miss Ochiba schools Eff and her friend William in Aphrikan magic during after-school tutoring sessions while Lan is busy learning the more commonly valued Avrupan (European) magic.

We also meet the Society of Progressive Rationalists, who abhor magic and are determined to build a settlement without using any at all. One such rationalist, Brant Wilson, studies with Eff’s father and turns out to be a bit of a hero; he also turns Eff’s older sister’s head. Another character of note is “Wash” Washington Morris, a circuit riding magician who troubleshoots problems in the scattered settlements.

In time, Eff’s gifts begin to show in unexpected ways as she and her family and friends take on a problem that is destroying the crops of the entire region. It’s not dragon fighting, but it’s a matter of life and death for these struggling farmers.

Thirteenth Child reads like historical fiction, and I was thoroughly caught up in the way the Columbian settlers handled their challenges. One of the strengths of the book is the way Wrede captures the "can do" feeling of frontier living and this era in our country's history. Her greatest success, though, is the character of Eff and her story, which is what really kept me going. I did get a little bogged down near the end of the book during explanations about different stages of beetles, but that’s the only place my reading faltered. I can assure you that Patricia C. Wrede’s latest series, like a settler taming new land, is off to a brave, strong start.