Monday, June 18, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman



  La Belle Sauvage is the first part of a new trilogy of books - The Book of Dust - by Philip Pullman, set in the same universe as his famous "His Dark Materials" trilogy.  This book is essentially a prequel to the earlier trilogy, although apparently the sequels to this book will take place either alongside or after the original trilogy of works.  In any event, I've never read "His Dark Materials" so I came into La Belle Sauvage blind, as if it was a brand new work in its entirety.  As it was nominated for the (Not-A-)Hugo Award for Best SF/F YA Novel of 2017, I was curious to see how it would read as such.

  But as a stand-alone beginning to a new trilogy however, La Belle Sauvage did not work for me.  While it's not openly annoying to read at any point - It's not a frustrating to read book and I had no problem finishing it - it doesn't do enough to justify its own existence as its own book.  The book spends its entire first half working as setup - the titular boat begins its journey at the end of the 15th chapter of a 25 chapter book - and...doesn't really set up some of the events that follow particularly, well, such that they feel like they come out of nowhere.  Add in some relatively one note characters - and well, it isn't a book I would recommend except maybe to HDM fans, and it certainly falls behind all of the other contenders for the YA award.

More after the Jump



---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Malcolm "Mal" Polstead is a middle school age boy in an alternate version of Oxford, England, who when out of school helps his parents run their pub, the Trout, and helps the Sisters at the Priory across the bridge with their tasks.  He and Asta, his daemon - the animal spirit who represents his soul - are incredibly curious and observant, something which attracts the notice of more than a few interesting people.  Soon he comes to notice that agents of the Church are taking more power and are convincing kids in school to rat our their parents....and also comes to the attention of an underground spy organization known as Oakley Street seemingly aiming to combat the Church.  Malcolm soon realizes that everyone - the Church, Oakley Street, and a strange man with a hyena for a daemon - is after the same thing - a baby girl named Lyra who is being cared for by the Sisters in the Priory in secret.

But when a huge rainstorm causes a massive flood, Mal and his co-worker Alice are forced to take Lyra aboard Mal's canoe, the La Belle Sauvage, and to somehow get her to safety.   But the journey is uncertain and perilous, with not only the Church, but supernatural forces also coming across their pathway to potential safety in London.  And then there's the strange man with the hyena daemon, who will seemingly stop at nothing to get Lyra for his own ends....
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As I mentioned above, I haven't read His Dark Materials, but the book makes incredibly clear when characters it is referencing are important characters from that trilogy - Lyra, Asriel, Mrs. Coulter, Coram, etc. The thing is that these characters have small roles that I guess will mean something to more experienced readers, but have no significance to a new reader of this universe like me.  The most significant character of the bunch is Lyra, but well...she's a baby, so it's not like she's an actual character in this book as opposed to a MacGuffin, and well, she's obviously going to survive this book which limits the nature of some of the threats involved.

Really our only three or four clearly developed characters to any extent in this book (not counting the daemons) are Mal, Alice, Hannah, and the antagonist Bonneville.  And...none of them were that interesting.  Mal is a pretty standard main hero - the young bright kid who notices things others don't and is brave enough to do what must be done - but never exceptional, and he's probably the stand-out.  Alice basically is absent from the first half of the book except for small mentions and then mostly functions as someone for Mal to play off of (and then for him to gain a crush on).  Bonneville is just generic evil bad guy (who we know is bad because the book repeatedly points out he was in jail for sexual misconduct, oh boy!) so he's not interesting in and of himself.  And while Hannah Relf shows some interesting traits - as the spy who feels guilt involving Mal and who is afraid of how far her allies will go - it all comes out to absolutely nothing in the end.

And well, the book's plot and pacing is also a bit of a mess.  Maybe it works better again for readers of HDM, but the first half sets up basically this conflict between the underground Oakley Street and the Church....and then the second half of the book is practically a pastiche of The Oddysey, complete with Mal and Alice running into various supernatural beings (Fae, Witches, Giants, etc), most of whom come up completely out of the blue and have no overall significance after they are passed.  It's like two totally different books in one, with the author never really deciding to commit to giving one a fulfilling story overall.

In short, I suspect the people who nominated La Belle Sauvage for the Best Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy Award were fans of His Dark Materials, because unless you are already such a fan, this book is just not going to do anything for you.  There's nothing wrong with that of course, but a book that can't stand on its own is definitely not worthy of the award for me.
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