Escape from Silk Cotton Forest (Island Fiction) by Francis C Escayg
| Escape from Silk Cotton Forest (Island Fiction) by Francis C Escayg | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: This fantasy quest story has some earthy Caribbean touches in amongst its unusual characters and plotting, but too many awkward points, both major and minor, for me to really recommend it. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 191 | Date: October 2008 |
| Publisher: Macmillan Caribbean | |
| ISBN: 978-1405099004 | |
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Domino is best friends with trouble. Well, actually, his only friend is a talking mongoose, but the two are synonymous. When the mongoose, Peenut, is not stealing gems, or adlibbing derogatory songs in the marketplace fair, the pair are falling unwittingly into the middle of a war, between their inept king, and neighbouring rogue states, and even other species. It's a veritable melange of allies, enemies, spies, shapeshifters, vampires, werewolves and slavers.
In fact, Domino himself is not completely human, but we may wade through the whole book only to find out exactly what he is in the afterword. There were several other hiccups I did not expect to find in a book such as this, which I would reckon was targeted at something like the 10-13 audience. There was one silly example of unsavoury language, far too much cannabis use (I know this is a book coming from the Caribbean, but all the same…), interior body parts, beheadings. People vomit and/or faint left, right and centre.
But the biggest problem remains the fact there is far too little in the way of an 'in', and too little information to tell us who is who, what was what, what the overall picture of the setting is and therefore what we might be expected to read about.
Some of what I mention are tics of my own, and others I admit do allow for some local colour, but that colour was muddied when I was struggling to learn what I needed to. It boils down to a quest fantasy in the end, with a boy and his unknown legacy to create, using Trinidadian folklore and mythology as a base, but coming up with something modern and contemporary.
At times this succeeded. The characters of Domino and Peenut are actually quite nice, and their bickering relationship does not outstay its welcome. There are some pictures and scenes along the journey of the characters that do stand out and make sure this is still possibly worth a look, with some better touches here and there, and the odd standout line. The opposite to that is when we are roughly midway, and blunder into a second unit scene, with minor players suddenly undergoing their part in the tale. It's a disarming split when it's only done the once.
The book does go some way to provide the novel and unusual, and in its own sweet way is at least a little educational about traditional Caribbean folklore characters, but it is proof that novel, unusual and the exotic do not always mean brilliant.
We must still thank the publishers for the Bookbag's review copy.
Exotic colour and locales for this age group are found with greater success in Zal and Zara and the Great Race of Azamed by Kit Downes, while Tarantula Tide by Sharon Tregenza leads the way in showing how small, insular island locales can lead to novel magic in a fully rounded way.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Escape from Silk Cotton Forest (Island Fiction) by Francis C Escayg at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Escape from Silk Cotton Forest (Island Fiction) by Francis C Escayg at Amazon.com.
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