There are some out of the ordinary choices for the setting in the medical thriller "Thousand Leaves" - nothing that hurts the book, but things that hint at a use they didn't fully get. The titular city where almost all the action takes place is an architectural marvel - well beyond what's possible right now - yet the world seems otherwise contemporary in terms of technology. It makes for some neat visuals, but otherwise the setup of the three-tiered city largely comes to naught; the social stratification from the setup isn't really integrated with the occasional class issues any more than different neighborhoods would be. Another, more immediately obvious choice is the use of anthropomorphized animals to populate the world - bipedal coyotes, foxes, lemurs, and so on. I like this sort of thing, and author Kevin Frane uses the characters' expressiveness (tails, ears, fur) nicely enough, but the only tie-in to the plot is somewhat questionable.

Frane spends a lot more time on the characters than the setting, though, and he uses it well. The perspective moves between a number of characters, although 4 of them have the lion's share, and it never gets tripped up by the switches back and forth. The characters are well-defined and react convincingly to the advance of the disease in themselves and others; the 4 main viewpoint characters are handled particularly well. It gives a lot of weight to the thriller portions. And while some of the shadowy motivations behind the villains aren't that well defined - which can be sort of expected, given the conspiratorial structure - the plot moves effectively from the early, mostly friendly tone into increasing danger and paranoia.

The prose has some problems though. This is Frane's first novel, and it sometimes shows in clunky or simply entirely unnecessary sentences that disrupt the flow:

"Oh, of course there hasn't. I don't think that would stop you from knowing anyway, though." The ferret was correct about that, of course.

The second sentence is unnecessary, particularly since the characters are established enough that the readers already know the ferret is right; it disrupts the flow a little.

The book is published by Sofawolf press, so it's in a very nice trade paperback format. Somewhat out of character, the production process almost seems rushed - there's a handful of copyediting mistakes, and though there's the usual interior art, there's less than usual; on the plus side, the pieces do add to the mood very effectively.

"Thousand Leaves" has some hiccups, but the development of the ensemble cast apace the plot make it a very good read. I look forward to more work from Frane. ( )