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A review by duffypratt
Someplace to Be Flying by Charles de Lint
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Typically, DeLint's work involves mundane people who discover that there is a supernatural layer to the world that most mundane people ignore or deny. In the process, he has mostly kept to the perspectives of ordinary/mundane people and thus left mysterious the workings and motivations of the supernatural actors.
This book takes us much deeper into the lives of the supernatural beings. Thus, to the extent that there is a more or less uniform supernatural that underlies Newford, this book gives a lot of insight into how that works. The trouble is, I am not yet convinced that there is any such uniform layer. I'm not entirely sure how the supernatural here connects with what I saw in his earlier books. For example, Cody here is Coyote, the native American trickster god. And Coyote has had a rather large role in other stories, like Trader. But I'm not entirely persuaded that Cody here is the same as Bones in that story. I just don't know.
On its own, however, I liked this book quite a bit. I especially liked the portrayals of the crow girls and of Jack. The story starts out a bit convoluted. It seems to revolve around Lily, a photojournalist and Hank, a gypsy cab driver who does odd runs for the Mafia. But then it seems to revolve around Kerry, a woman who wrongfully spent most of her youth committed to a mental institution, and who has just recently arrived in the city. How these things will relate is not clear at the outset, and it takes a while for everything to fall into place.
What it actually revolves around, it turns out, is a magical pot -- the pot that Raven used to create the world. Stirring the pot tends to cause catastrophic/apocolyptic change, and there are some baddies who are after it, even though no-one knows where it is or what it looks like.
DeLint does an excellent job at describing the different approaches that beings might take to living thousands of years. The supernatural actors in this book tend to be fascinating. The quasi-supernatural actors, those who carry some of the old peoples' blood, are a little less interesting. And the thoroughly mundane are just that.
All in all, I liked this book, but not quite as much as Trader or Memory & Dream. It took his world in a new direction. I'm hoping I will better be able to piece together some of how his world works in the next books. I think he may be better as a novelist than as a short story writer (but I tend to like novels better anyway).
This book takes us much deeper into the lives of the supernatural beings. Thus, to the extent that there is a more or less uniform supernatural that underlies Newford, this book gives a lot of insight into how that works. The trouble is, I am not yet convinced that there is any such uniform layer. I'm not entirely sure how the supernatural here connects with what I saw in his earlier books. For example, Cody here is Coyote, the native American trickster god. And Coyote has had a rather large role in other stories, like Trader. But I'm not entirely persuaded that Cody here is the same as Bones in that story. I just don't know.
On its own, however, I liked this book quite a bit. I especially liked the portrayals of the crow girls and of Jack. The story starts out a bit convoluted. It seems to revolve around Lily, a photojournalist and Hank, a gypsy cab driver who does odd runs for the Mafia. But then it seems to revolve around Kerry, a woman who wrongfully spent most of her youth committed to a mental institution, and who has just recently arrived in the city. How these things will relate is not clear at the outset, and it takes a while for everything to fall into place.
What it actually revolves around, it turns out, is a magical pot -- the pot that Raven used to create the world. Stirring the pot tends to cause catastrophic/apocolyptic change, and there are some baddies who are after it, even though no-one knows where it is or what it looks like.
DeLint does an excellent job at describing the different approaches that beings might take to living thousands of years. The supernatural actors in this book tend to be fascinating. The quasi-supernatural actors, those who carry some of the old peoples' blood, are a little less interesting. And the thoroughly mundane are just that.
All in all, I liked this book, but not quite as much as Trader or Memory & Dream. It took his world in a new direction. I'm hoping I will better be able to piece together some of how his world works in the next books. I think he may be better as a novelist than as a short story writer (but I tend to like novels better anyway).