Prophecies, Libels & Dreams

September 8, 2014
The Republic of Califa—remarkably like the U.S. Old West, were it saturated with chaotic and cunning magic—is long past its glory days, but the wild stories remain. Wilce (the Flora Segunda series) leaps into this rollicking past with the “true” story of Springheel Jack in “The Biography of a Bouncing Boy Terror!” and only gets more fantastical from there. “Quartermaster Returns” demonstrates that great lengths are sometimes required to get someone to square their debts. In “Scaring the Shavetail,” Arizona soldiers invoke dangerous magic to rid themselves of a naïve and inexperienced commander. Each rowdy and bloody story is followed by an afterword judging its historical and mythical merits, in one case determining that the work was “utter balderdash.” Magic and mundane mix and crash like a party falling in with a bar fight; sigils might be dug out of a mine alongside gold nuggets, and settlers die by daemon attack as often as by high-noon showdown or an Apache knife. Historical fantasy fans will want to saddle up with Wilce’s boisterous and skewed chronicle. Agent: Michael Stearns, Upstart Crow.

September 15, 2014
This collection of tales, fragments and "history" from Wilce's Califa may share a setting with the cuddly-(only)-by-comparison Flora books for teens (Flora Segunda, 2007, etc.), but don't be fooled: This is a steampunkish, rococo anthology for a decidedly more mature readership. Califa: riotous carnival world of soldiers, drunks and magick (very) loosely based on California in the 1800s. Califa: marvel of ingenuity and purple prose. The seven stories here (five were previously published elsewhere) focus mostly on a single small period of time just before and after the Warlord's invasion and primarily on the previous Pontifexa's grandson and great-granddaughter, cousins and reluctant spouses. From Hardhands' initial consideration ("not exactly entirely Hardhands..., at least not yet,") of regicide to avoid marrying Tiny Doom, then only a child, to Tiny Doom's own early adulthood and the latest salvo in the war between them, the stories of these two fascinating characters form the literal and figurative heart of the collection. Other tales range from the whimsical-to-the-point-of-inexplicable opener, about Califa's own Springheel Jack, to the closer, which the in-character afterword claims is a fantasy but which readers will find most familiar, set as it is in our actual history. A wordsmith ("Once upon a time, my little waffles...[in] a land well full of hardship, turmoil, and empty handball courts") in love with her creations can be dangerous, but with the throttle set just right, the results nearly sparkle. Most of this does, barring the sometimes-forced conceit and unfortunate choices regarding story order. Ribald, raucous, distressingly appealing, so steeped in its own world that readers may well be driven to find everything else Wilce has written-this won't be for everyone, but oh, my precious pillows, what a joy for those who can handle it.

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