Friday, May 18, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng



  Under the Pendulum Sun is essentially a combination of the Fae Fantasy and Gothic Fiction Genres, taking place in a mysterious Fae world inside a mysterious and creepy mansion with untold secrets.  To say any more about its genre might be a spoiler, but the end result is a fantastic story filled with twists and turns that threw me for a loop multiple times, and a group of characters who make those twists truly impactful.

  It should be noted, as should be apparently from the plot description (but I missed anyhow until I got into the book), that the book references Christian Theology quite a bit.  As someone who isn't Christian, it's very likely that I therefore missed a bunch of the references, although much of it is explained for the layman/non-Christian like myself.  That said, the book worked really really well for me despite my lack of knowledge, so don't let that stop you from reading this book.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
When the Fae World of Arcadia - findable only by getting well and truly lost at sea - is discovered in the Victorian World, the human world begins to treat it as another country: sending traders to trade goods and of course, sending missionaries to convert the Fae.  The first Anglican Missionary sent to Arcadia vanished under mysterious circumstances.  Laon Helstone was the second Anglican Missionary to be sent, but his reports back to home have been sparse...at best.

Catherine Helstone, his sister and fellow devout, undertakes to follow him with the Church's blessing to find out what happened to him.  But when she arrives at the Mysterious House of Gethsemane, she finds her brother absent and the House seemingly empty except for a few Fae - a Changeling, a Gnome who is the only Christian Convert, and the housekeeper "Salamander" who never seems to appear in front of her.  To make it worse, none of them will seemingly speak straight to her, and she discovers cryptic notes that seem to belong to the first missing missionary.

And then her brother returns and is not pleased to see her there....and with news that the Fae Queen Mab hot on his heels.  In her search for the truth behind this mysterious place, Catherine will discover that not only are things in Gethsemane stranger than they might seem on the surface, but that when she discovers the truth it will challenge everything she and her brother ever knew.
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Under the Pendulum Sun is truly fantastic all the way around. It contains a group of fascinating characters, particularly its main two protagonists, and absolutely wonderfully built Fae world.  This is a world where the sun goes across the sky like a pendulum, the moon is a literal fish swimming through the sky, and there are "sea whales" which swim through the ground and contain the sea literally inside them.  Each chapter contains a quote from a text - usually a fictionalized version of a real world text from this world - which adds color to the world and plot (my favorite is a story about technicians, trying to find a way to more routinely enter Arcadia, building a train whose destination is set by a randomization device so as to increase one's odds of getting lost).

Our characters are also excellent.  Catherine is our main character (the story is told from her point of view in first person) and is an excellent protagonist, devoted to her brother and full of faith, with a drive to find the truth and to be the best missionary this sexist world will allow her to be, whose reactions to the truths behind Arcadia are both realistic and utterly haunting.  Her brother Laon is also an interesting secondary character, as are each of the other more minor characters (particularly the Changeling guide Ariel Davenport.)

The plot is also excellent, filled with twists and turns all the way around.  This is very much, as I stated above, a combination of the gothic fiction and fae fantasy genres - our protagonist spends the first quarter of the book exploring the mysterious and creepy Fae mansion and discovering things that are unsettling and don't make sense, and it only expands on that light from there.  And while that's not really my favorite genre, it works incredibly well here.  The first big reveal is the only one the reader will see coming a mile away, and the book uses it in a way that makes it still have a pretty big impact even without the surprise.  And then the book's other twists definitely have an impact, and I at least did not see them coming.  And the ending packs a hell of a punch while putting a satisfying cap on this story.

This is going to be a particularly short review, because this is definitely a book where to say too much risks spoiling it - and this is definitely a book where remaining unspoiled will matter.  If there's are any negatives about this book I must mention, I'd first mention that the book is not fast paced in any sense, especially it's first of four parts - and even after that part it's more of a slow burn than anything.  I didn't have a problem with it, but some readers may find it takes too long to get going.

Secondly, the book does engage in a bit of a squicky part - something that it hints at fairly early-ish on, but I was hoping it wouldn't actually engage in - but it does wind up working and isn't there solely for shock value.  Still these are minor complaints. This book got its author a nomination for this year's Campbell Award for Best New SF/F Author and it's one that will have her very high on my list.

Much Recommended.
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