Illuminations

From the review in my newsletter back when the book was first released, here's my take on T. Kingfisher's ILLUMINATIONS, reviewed by Karen last week. As she mentioned, this isn't a horror novel, like the books that made Kingfisher one of my new favorite authors, but an alternate-world fantasy for preteens (judging by the age of the protagonist, although readers of any age can enjoy it). It takes place in an alternate nineteenth-century Europe in which the French Revolution, or its local equivalent, seems to have succeeded better than in our history, for the whole continent uses the Revolutionary calendar with its renamed months and days. The heroine, Rosa, dwells in a city resembling Venice, with canals, a Dynast instead of a king, and mostly Italian-sounding names. An orphan, she lives with her eccentric but endearing extended family, one of the most distinguished lineages of illuminators. She’s practicing the art but so far hasn’t graduated to producing actual illuminations. Her favorite things to draw are radishes with fangs. Unfortunately, that image serves no useful purpose. There’s a massive reference tome listing all known illuminations, each of which must be drawn in precise, unvarying detail to be effective. Fanged radishes aren’t among them.

Against the background of a major civic project using illuminations to fix a long-term problem with the city’s sewage disposal, Rosa’s own trouble begins when she finds a mysterious box in the basement. She accidentally releases a creature imprisoned in the box, and a crow painted on the lid comes to life. His information about the history of the box and its connection to one of Rosa’s ancestors seems a bit shady, and he’s easily distracted by the urge to pilfer shiny objects. His insistence that she not tell the rest of the family about him gets her into trouble when the diminutive monster starts vandalizing their home workshop and the illuminations themselves. After the nuisance escalates into danger, though, the crow does come clean with the full truth at last. I don’t want to go into spoilery detail about the family’s fight against the malicious creature and its minions, so I’ll mention only that Rosa’s radishes play a surprising role. Meanwhile, the story nicely balances Rosa’s magical woes with her preteen-girl difficult relationship with her best friend, daughter of another important illuminator family, who’s just enough older than Rosa to start making real illuminations for clients. Like Kingfisher’s A WIZARD’S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING, ILLUMINATIONS portrays a young heroine whose odd magical talent turns out to be of vital importance. As usual, Kingfisher writes the protagonist’s viewpoint in an irresistibly witty style.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Becoming a Dark Lord/Lady

Is it possible to be a good Dark Lord (or Lady)? The term "good" in this context is ambiguous. It can mean competent, skilled at certain tasks, fit for his, her, or its purpose. Or it can mean morally and ethically virtuous. We could call Shakespeare's versions of Macbeth and Richard III "good characters," meaning they're well constructed, believable, and entertaining. But we wouldn't label them morally good. A character could be a good Dark Lord or Lady in the sense of a convincing example of a powerful villain (from the reader's viewpoint) or an expert in ruling villainously (within the fictional world). Could a dark ruler be morally good, though, or is that concept self-contradictory?

I recently read THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER, by Patricia C. Wrede. Fourteen-year-old Kayla is snatched from our world, along with her adoptive mother and brother, by a man who informs her she's the only child of the late Dark Lord of a realm reminiscent of the fantasy worlds in her brother's favorite movies and video games. To Kayla's dismay, everyone seriously expects her to deal with opposition and assert her power by exiling, torturing, or executing people on the slightest pretext. How can she hold her unwanted position (while working to learn enough magic to return herself and her family to Earth) without transforming into a villain? Surprisingly even to herself, she comes to care for some of the people under her nominal rule and can't just abandon them without trying to fix the more dysfunctional features of the lair and throne she has inherited.

THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER reminds me a bit of Ursula Vernon's CASTLE HANGNAIL, whose heroine, Molly, isn't drafted into her position but deliberately applies for it. She answers an ad seeking a wicked witch to take over a castle in need of a master or mistress. The minions of Castle Hangnail, desperate for someone to rule the estate so they won't lose their home, gradually warm to this twelve-year-old girl who does have magic but otherwise barely qualifies. To become the castle's permanent custodian, she has to check off a lists of achievements, including such tasks as smiting and blighting. Some people deserve a mild smiting, and blighting weeds in the herb garden qualifies as a dark action without crossing the line into true evil. Along those lines, Molly manages to fulfill the "wicked witch" role without becoming a bad person. Just when she's on the verge of approval as the official sorceress of Castle Hangnail, though, an unexpected visitor exposes the deception she perpetrated to get over the threshold in the first place -- but no more spoilers!

In case by any chance you've never read the Evil Overlord List, here's that exhaustive inventory of things a supervillain should never do:

Evil Overlord List

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.