SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar: https://t.co/3EymBFqbe3
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) September 21, 2021
Short Review: 7 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): In one world, a man grieves his dying son; in another a Stranger wanders a weird western world filled with clowns, colossi, shadows and arcana, searching for a flower that can restore life, in this interesting if not cohesive idea filled western fantasy
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) September 21, 2021
2/3
Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 21, 2021 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Escapement is the latest novel from award winning Israeli science fiction/fantasy writer, Lavie Tidhar - an author whose work I have barely touched in the past (I've read his Central Station, which I didn't particularly love). Still, Tidhar's work has always been highly praised by people I trust, so I was interested in taking another shot at it.
The Escapement is a really interesting short novel, although it's one that I have a hard time getting a full handle on. The book is one part the story of a father dealing with the imminent death of a child, one part Dark-Tower like gunslinger in a fantasy western setting centered around clowns, and one part set of stories based upon historical and folk stories of various cultures. It's a story about a single moment of happiness, and the longing for it to last forever rather than going away. I'm not quite sure it all worked for me, or that large parts didn't go over my head, but it's certainly worth a read.
-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------------
In one world, a boy lies sick in a hospital bed, and a man grieves and frustratingly clings to their memories of happiness, and longs for the chance to bring back the child one more time.
In another world, The Escapement, The Stranger wanders a land full of clowns, where Colossi and Shadows wage war upon each other through human pawns, and where the landscape can turn into a shifting maze around you if you're not careful. The Stranger, armed with his guns, searches for the Ur-shanabi, a flower also known as the Plant of Heartbeat, which could save the boy.
But the Escapement is a land full of strange dangers, filled with beings native to the land and from the other world entirely, with the Substance between worlds being used in many different and deadly ways. And so the Stranger will find his journey interrupted repeatedly by the stories of others, of killers and clowns, Colossi and shadows, of Arcana and carnies, which will test him time and time again, as the clock ticks down on the moments left in the boy's life....
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The Escapement is a short novel, but it's filled with ideas, stories, and two connecting worlds - one that is recognizably ours, and then that of the Escapement itself. The two worlds are of course utterly intertwined, with the unnamed man in our world, grieving for his child, spending increasing amounts of time in the Escapement, looking for a flower that can save his boy's life. The people of the Escapement depend increasingly on "Substance", which floods the area, and a hole of it leads directly into the other "real" world (you can get the metaphor there), and which can also be used to make narcotics among other things. But whatever else the Escapement is, it's also a world based upon the last happy moment of the boy and the man, a world based on a moment of joy in a circus, with clowns and balloons. And so clowns are their own species, sacred in some ways and hated in others, with cream pies being potentially deadly weapons, and churches devoted to their promotion.
In this world, as the Stranger attempts to find the flower that can save the boy despite all the warnings about what it will cost, Tidhar tells a number of different stories. Most of these stories are western flavored, and will remind readers very much of The Dark Tower - the Stranger is a dead ringer for the gunslinger, especially as he gains a sidekick named The Kid. The stories here are based on historical murderers and events, folktales from various cultures, and more, and they are generally fascinating, and Tidhar does an excellent job making them feel natural one after the other, even as they're shifted into the fashion of the Escapement and feature similar characters.
Of course, and this was an issue with the other Tidhar work I've read (Central Station), how well it all combines to form a cohesive whole with a strong message is more of a question, and I was very often kind of feeling that I wasn't quite sure what point the book was making with its two worlds. The individual tales within are excellent and fascinating as mentioned above, and there's something really different about making the fantasy world be about that one moment in a child's life of true happiness....but where the book was going with that didn't quite work for me? Like it's not bad, and the individual parts work well, and the ending is fine, but I just felt like it should've been going somewhere more. It makes it kind of hard to add more to this review.
I suspect this will work for others more than me, and it's certainly worth your time despite the above thoughts, since the individual parts are all solid and the book is short. But alas.
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