“Does not suit our needs at this present time” is the standard rejection phrase when markets don’t want to offer specific criticisms. Or when they don’t have a specific criticism. Frustrating though it is, there are occasions I have the same reaction to books I’ve read.
Illustrations are random shots of neighborhood plants.
THE DALLERGUT DREAM DEPARTMENT STORE by Korean author Miye Lee is a low-key fantasy about Penny, a woman who lands a job in the eponymous dream-selling business. She gets to know the other staffers, the dream creators, the market for dreams (I do like that people can come in buy dreams for pets, like giving an old sick dog a dream of their youth) … but that made too slight a tale to engage me. As it became a million-copy best seller in South Korea, I’m curious if it’s just me or there’s some essential Korean themes here I don’t pick up.
ROYAL GAMBIT by Daniel O’Malley is the fourth in a series set in a world where super-powered mutants have been cropping up in England for centuries (other nations too), though the root cause is supernatural rather than genetic. The Chequy is the British government agency that recruits/drafts the mutants as special agents to fight the renegade supernaturals and keep the true nature of reality hidden from the public.
This book opens with the death of the Prince of Wales by supernatural means (a stone pyramid materialized in his skull, reminding me of Doctor Satan). Was it an accidental manifestation of someone’s power? An assassination? Are more royals on the list? That’s a golden opportunity for Alix, whose power breaks bones with her touch; an aristocratic young woman, she moves in the right circles to become one of the new Princess of Wales’ ladies in waiting, putting her in a position to watch over the family and keep an eye out for the killer.
While I like O’Malley’s taste for giving the supernaturals bizarre abilities, this never caught fire for me; I finished, but only by skimming a lot of it. I’m not sure if it’s that urban fantasy isn’t my go-to genre, that this kind of authoritarian governmental body has been old hat since the X-Files or that the book focuses more on intrigues within the Chequy and the details of life in the royal world than the plot.
