Wednesday, February 5, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Dream So Dark by L L McKinney




A Dream So Dark is the second in L.L. McKinney's "The Nightmare-Verse" trilogy, which began with A Blade So Black (Reviewed Here).  The series is a portal fantasy based upon Alice in Wonderland, in which our heroine, a black high school girl from Atlanta, secretly has a double life fighting monsters called Nightmares in parallel world to prevent them from coming over to our world....all the while dealing with some of the real issues facing black teens in the real world.  I very much enjoyed the setup of the first book, but felt that the story felt a bit too much like the beginning of a larger story for my tastes, so it wasn't quite satisfying.  Still, having enjoyed the setting and lead heroine, I was looking forward to the sequel, and here it is.

And A Dream So Dark is a very enjoyable novel, if also more than a bit of a mess.  The story follows immediately from the last book's cliffhanger, expands the world in some interesting ways, and continues to grow our fantastic main character.  On the other hand, it also removes one of the more interesting subplots quickly and features some plot developments that feel kind of shallow and unsupported.  But the novel is still really fun, and I am interested in seeing where the trilogy goes in its final volume from here.

Warning: Light spoilers for A Blade So Black below.


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Alice's life is in shambles: her best school guy friend (and maybe more?) Chess has been killed by the Black Knight, the Heart is still unfound, and she's definitely grounded for the near future by her mother, who is naturally terrified of Alice being caught out repeatedly on the streets of Atlanta.  But when Chess seems to wake up and kidnaps Maddi, Alice knows she has to head into Wonderland once more, and this time on a long journey....one where there's no way her mom won't figure out she's gone missing.

Yet even if Alice can find a way to get past her mom and into Wonderland, she'll find that her goal - to get back the Heart, defeat the Black Knight, and maybe save Chess if possible - is even farther from reach than she could have imagined.  Because the Black Knight's master, and perhaps the one now behind Chess, is now aware of Alice's power and will not let her have the time she needs to come up with a plan again....and Alice will require all of her wits and skills, to say nothing of the help of her friends, old and new, to manage to survive at all.....never mind saving the day....
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A Dream So Dark takes place immediately after the epilogue of A Blade So Black, as you might imagine, so it jumps right in to the continuation of the story.  Still, the book shifts a little here: while this is still Alice's story at its heart, the story actually shows us part of the story at times from other perspectives - in particular, from Hatta's and from the view of last book's antagonist, The Black Knight.  These story shifts are nice in theory but I'm not really sure they work too well - both Hatta and the Black Knight feel honestly like different characters entirely in their heads from how they appear in the last book, especially the Black Knight.

Which contributes to this book feeling like a mess at times, honestly.  The Black Knight goes from a taunting evil foe, willing to harm Alice's friends to get what his Lady wants in the last book, to a man confused about his past with strange feelings about Alice in this one pretty much immediately and it's really jarring and doesn't quite work.  New background characters from the Wonderland past are introduced who were never previously mentioned* only to become pivotal answers to questions from the first book, making those answers feel a little unsatisfying.  And the book takes one of the more interesting twists on a common trope for this type of story from the first book and promptly disposes of it entirely only 20% of the way through.**  It's hard not to read through these problems and not feel a bit disoriented by how it all pans out at times.

*Spoiler in ROT13: Gur Oynpx Xavtug'f vqragvgl jnf n zlfgrel va gur svefg obbx, naq ernqref jub ner pyrire zvtug'ir thrffrq gung ur naq uvf ynql ner pbaarpgrq gb gur zvffvat Erq Dhrra.  Ohg uvf byq frys, nf gur Erq Xavtug Uhzcuerlf, vf pbzcyrgryl hazragvbarq hagvy cenpgvpnyyl whfg orsber vg vf erirnyrq gur gjb punenpgref ner bar naq gur fnzr - naq uvf pbaarpgvba nf n sbezre ybire bs Unggn (naq uvf arjsbhaq vagrerfg va Nyvpr) vf whfg pbzcyrgryl bhg bs guva nve va guvf obbx, juvpu vf qvfbevragvat.

 **Spoiler in ROT13: Gur svefg obbx ghearq gur pynffvp grrantr fhcreureb(var) unf gb xrrc ure fhcreureb yvsr n frperg sebz ure cneragf, jub tebhaq ure naq gel gb xrrc ure vafvqr qhr gb ure qvfnccrnevat npg, ba vgf urnq ol tvivat n qnza tbbq whfgvsvpngvba sbe vg: Nyvpr'f zbz vf nsenvq bs Nyvpr'f irel erny qnatre bs orvat n oynpx tvey va Ngynagn, jurer nabgure lbhat tvey jnf erpragyl (va obbx) xvyyrq ol cbyvpr.  Ohg nobhg 20% bs gur jnl guebhtu, Nyvpr vf sbeprq ol na nggnpx bs gur Oynpx Xavtug vagb erirnyvat gur frperg gb ure zbgure, jub vf gura sbeprq ortehqtvatyl (naq srneshyyl) vagb yrggvat Nyvpr tb onpx vagb Jbaqreynaq, pbzcyrgryl erzbivat guvf nep sebz gur fgbel. 

 But again, here's the thing, this book is still, despite all that, really enjoyable and overall works, far better than it should.  Alice is of course the key to that, as she's a fantastically likable heroine, between her fears for her friends, her conflicted love interests, her need to do something to save everyone and her guilt for her failures, etc.  She's everything you want from this classic archetype and more (her geekiness, and Sailor Moon fandom, remains adorable).  And this book adds new friends and develops old ones in ways to make them excellent additions to the cast who build off Alice's own work, with the plot taking Alice through new and different parts of Wonderland, which are great to see.  And whereas the first book ended on a really unsatisfying cliffhanger, this book (oddly for a second book) has a pretty damn conclusive resolution - there are still some sequel hooks, but the main arc here seems done, which is much more satisfying to read.

So yeah, A Dream So Dark isn't all it could be, and it's got issues, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun, and definitely recommended.  I'll be back for book 3, to see where we go from here.
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