Masque of the Red Death

April 16, 2012
This gothic adventure reimagines Poe’s classic story of the same name as a full-length YA adventure. The world has been devastated by the Weeping Sickness, a disfiguring and often fatal disease staved off only with specialized masks and obsessive preventive measures. The rich hide in their towers and party in the notorious Debauchery District, the poor scrape by, and the despotic Prince Prospero rules with an iron fist. Araby, the 17-year-old daughter of the mask’s inventor, is traumatized by her brother’s death from the plague, hiding from her feelings while partying. When she meets Elliott, the prince’s nephew and a would-be revolutionary, and Will, who works at her favorite club, Araby must choose her destiny and follow her heart, while a new disease rages and the city burns. Griffin (Handcuffs) delivers a seductively dark, decadently disturbing look at a society crumbling from within and without, infused with a romantic, steampunk air and Poe’s own morbid sensibilities. Themes of science and faith weave through a story that draws from Poe’s original while standing assuredly on its own. Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

March 15, 2012
Griffin (Handcuffs, 2008) forsakes realism for sultry dystopia. Araby Worth lives in a tower soaring above a swampy, disease-ridden city. While her scientist father searches for a cure, Araby loses herself in a drugged haze and then finds purpose again joining a rebellion. But nothing is as Araby believes. Multiple factions work at cross-purposes, everyone has a secret agenda and the complex plot only thickens in this riff on Poe's short story. Griffin has taken several hot tropes--dystopic setting, pretty dresses, steampunk, love triangle--and created something that, if not new, at least feels different. The underlying questions about science and religion, which may save or destroy, and Araby's strangely dispassionate understanding of her own depression (despite a remarkable blindness to anything else) give the tale an unexpected psychological tension. Araby's precise, self-absorbed narration overwhelms some details of setting and nuances of character but elicits sympathy nonetheless. The complicated plotting fails to resolve in this volume (it is the first of two), but the inexorable movement towards the party in the prince's palace, where the wealthiest will dance to his sadistic whims while the world crumbles (per the source tale), makes for satisfying reading despite the lack of answers. Formulaic but fantastic, from the eye-catching cover to the growth of a heroine who might save the world. Tailor-made for popular consumption. (Dystopic steampunk. 14 & up)

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June 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-This grim tale tells of a city beset by plague. Everyone has to wear a protective mask, and corpse collectors come around every morning to dispose of the dead. Araby Worth lives a nihilistic existence centered around partying and taking drugs at the exclusive Debauchery Club, though she is careful never to kiss or sleep with anyone as she has vowed never to experience anything that her dead twin brother, a plague victim, would be unable to experience. This resolution is tested by two young men. Elliot is the nephew of the evil ruler, Prince Prospero (one of the novel's nods to Poe's original story), who is determined to save the city and willing to die trying. The other, Will, is more of a simple sort, trying merely to keep his younger brother and sister alive amid all the death. Both boys find themselves distracted from their goals by Araby and her irresistible beauty. She is not just any girl, however; her father invented the masks that are the only protection against the plague, and whose production is entirely controlled by Prince Prospero. The plot, set off when Araby steals the design plans for the masks from her father's study, is complicated, involving multiple underground rebel movements, the emergence of a second plague, and dark secrets about almost every character. As the novel ends with the plot unresolved and the main characters in danger for their lives, one can only assume there will be a sequel. Recommended where appetites for horrific postapocalyptic futures remain insatiable.-Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA

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