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nigellicus 's review for:
The Tourmaline
by Paul Park
It's been a while since I read A Princess Of Roumania, and my memory of what happened in that books is a bit sketchy, but I remember enjoying it enormously, so I'm delighted to have the next three books in the series to dive into. Miranda Popescu grows up in a small town in America, only to discover that she is, in fact, in a hiding place. Our world is merely a conjuring designed to keep her safe from her enemies. She is, in reality, a princess of Greater Roumania, and when our world vanishes, she and her two friends find themselves in a North America that is nothing but sparsely inhabited wilderness, hunted by soldiers sent by the evil Baroness Ceausescu. At the end of the first book, Miranda is transported to Roumania, leaving her friends behind.
Book 2, and we discover that she has not just been transported through space, but through time. For her, it is now five years later. While Peter and Andromeda set out to find her, their recent identities as American teenagers merging with their old identities as imperial soldiers, Miranda is taken by gypsies to her aunt's shrine, hunted by a vampire and used by the German Elector of Ratisbon in his war against the Baroness.
The Tourmaline is a fantasy in the mould of a fairy tale, a princess returned to reclaim her rightful throne. But Park avoids and defies convention and cliche. His protagonist jumps from young adult to adult in the space of a page. Her friends take on new, less attractive personalities. The careful plan laid by her aunt is immediately thrown away when the letter she leaves is destroyed unread. The political complexities of Europe are beyond Miranda's grasp and the woods and shrines and caves of Roumania are filled with magics and conjurings she cannot understand.
Comparisons with Pullman, Wolfe and LeGuin abound, and there is no question that if you like those authors you should give this a shot. There is also Margo Langan, of whose dark fairy-tale style this reminded me quite strongly. It is a subtle, sophisticated, ambitious work, and I'll be diving into the next volume directly.
Book 2, and we discover that she has not just been transported through space, but through time. For her, it is now five years later. While Peter and Andromeda set out to find her, their recent identities as American teenagers merging with their old identities as imperial soldiers, Miranda is taken by gypsies to her aunt's shrine, hunted by a vampire and used by the German Elector of Ratisbon in his war against the Baroness.
The Tourmaline is a fantasy in the mould of a fairy tale, a princess returned to reclaim her rightful throne. But Park avoids and defies convention and cliche. His protagonist jumps from young adult to adult in the space of a page. Her friends take on new, less attractive personalities. The careful plan laid by her aunt is immediately thrown away when the letter she leaves is destroyed unread. The political complexities of Europe are beyond Miranda's grasp and the woods and shrines and caves of Roumania are filled with magics and conjurings she cannot understand.
Comparisons with Pullman, Wolfe and LeGuin abound, and there is no question that if you like those authors you should give this a shot. There is also Margo Langan, of whose dark fairy-tale style this reminded me quite strongly. It is a subtle, sophisticated, ambitious work, and I'll be diving into the next volume directly.