Steven R. Boyett

A re-read of a book read years ago and loved then despite the sad ending (no spoiler, but given the premise of a unicorn as a main character and the traditional requirement for their companions to be virgins, it won't be a big suprise). And to begin with, I did love it anew.

However this time around, some of the setting became questionable: for example, when the power goes off on the day of The Change and most modern technology stops working, not only is this rather selective - guns don't work, or bicycles, but we later discover wristwatches do - but people start to behave very extremely, as neighbours attack the house and murder the protagonist's girlfriend after leaving Pete for dead. Perhaps this scene would have worked later in the story when some people's survival instincts caused a descent into barbarism, but it seems rather too rapid a development.

The 'gold' in the story for me happens two years later, when Pete meets a unicorn. She can communicate in baby talk, and he is able to teach her English, but she doesn't tell him how she hurt her foreleg until much later. As a virgin, Pete becomes Ariel's close companion: they are each others' Familiar, in the terminology of the post-apocalypse world where other creatures such as dragons, rocs, manticores and griffins have appeared and are sometimes bonded with humans, as are normal animals such as hawks. Since Ariel learns English from Pete she becomes a wisecracking character who swears and is generally not how you'd expect a unicorn to be, and that is one of the strongest elements in the story.

Pete and Ariel continue their aimless wandering until they decide to travel to New York to confront a wizard who sent a henchman after them because he wants Ariel's horn to use its magic power. It transpires that it was in an earlier encounter with this henchman and his griffin that Ariel's leg was broken: a memory that returns as they near New York. A man they've met, a somewhat stereotypical expert with a samurai sword who has been teaching Pete how to fight with a sword he gave him, goes ahead of them, since the henchman killed a good friend of his.

On the way to New York, they meet a small boy sent on a quest to kill a dragon by his foolish father, and that part of the story is fine; the boy is charming and the working out of the physics of how dragons can both fly and breathe fire is well done. There are similarities in this section, probably deliberate, with Don Quixote by Cervantes, which Pete is reading to Ariel while they travel. However, they also meet an odd young woman called Shaugnessey who becomes a kind of fem fatale. She latches onto them, ostensibly because she is fascinated by Ariel, but soon develops a rather pathetic mooning crush on Pete.

Apart from the rashness of the journey - how can they defeat the forces against them - the story derails severely when the inevitable happens. Pete only escapes with great difficulty and is debating a suicidal attack on the Empire State Building where Ariel is held captive when he runs into some men who happen to be reconnoitering on behalf of a well-organised group of survivors in Washington. Their community has been preyed upon by the wizard's forces, and they want to strike back, so Pete joins forces with them. This occurs about halfway through and the story then drags despite some well-written action sequences, because the relationship which sustained it - Ariel and Pete - is parked. We don't see her again until almost the end when she is definitely not herself.

There is a focus throughout, and especially in the last half, on Pete's struggle against his sexual awakening (only to be expected considering he is about twenty). He has some embarrassing interludes, and it is clear when they were still together that Ariel was troubled by Shaughnessey's presence. And when they are apart, Pete behaves horribly towards Shaughnessey, coming across as self absorbed and unattractive. We're told Shaughnessey loves Ariel despite her feelings for Pete so it's hard to believe at the finale, after they have searched for days for Ariel, that Shaughnessey initiates the encounter which the story has so obviously been leading towards . Pete is strung out, crying etc - he cries a lot after losing Ariel - so for Shaughnessey to take such advantage of his vulnerability shows her in a very unattractive light. Especially since, earlier on, another woman who nearly does the same out of ignorance, not only backs off but sends a written apology when she discovers it will destroy his relationship with Ariel! Shaughnessey is clearly meant to be seen as a selfish b***h, yet this does not tally with having a real love for Ariel as she must know her actions will cause the unicorn heartbreak.

I believe the book has been reissued with an afterword that explains some of the inconsistencies, including the disappearance of most of the human population and the absence of disease, but I haven't seen it. Suffice to say they stand out on this re-reading. Despite the graphic violence and sex, the book is probably more suited to the higher end of the YA age spectrum than for adult readers, which is a shame. The slump after the loss of Ariel - lectures on hang-gliding etc and guided tours of historic buildings in Washington feature - is indicative of the story's structural problems. I had good memories of it, and when I heard there was a sequel was interested to read that too, but am now not sure I would enjoy it. Hence only a 3-star rating.… (meer)

I've gone back and forth with the rating on this one. I think technically, it should be a one star (I didn't like it) because I didn't like it. But there were parts of it that were ok. It could have been a really good book but the execution of the idea was awful. To me. I disliked all of the Fata Morgana crew, I disliked who the main female Wenda (?- I listened to the audio and that's what it sounded like) became when she was around Joe. "You make me feel like a woman!" Pffft.

The narrator did a great job. So I'll bump it up to two stars for that. But I definitely don't recommend this one.… (meer)

I think what drew me to Fata Morgana was the promise of an old-fashioned adventure with a bit of romance: a WW2 bomber plane flies through a portal to another world and the crew has to learn how to deal with extreme culture shock while their captain falls in love with a mysterious woman. However, I wasn’t expecting that it would also include an obsessive attention to detail about the intricacies of flying and crewing a bomber.

Fata Morgana does deliver on that initial promise of adventure, but I have to admit that it required a bit of patience on my part to get invested in the story. I don’t generally enjoy it when an author has clearly gone out of their way to get every little detail right and wants to make for damn sure that you know about it. If you want to read an exhaustive catalog of the US Army Air Force bomber crew experience during WW2, you’ll probably love this book, but if you aren’t into that level of minutiae, you might have to give it some room to grow on you.

It doesn’t help that the characters are all fairly one-dimensional archetypes and they never rise above their first impressions. They wisecrack, they make earnest speeches, they sacrifice for the good of the crew, they’re generally stand-up guys. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per se, because the story well-executed and there isn’t a false note throughout, but I can barely remember any of their names.

There is one interesting sequence late in the book where reality comes unstuck and things get a little surreal, but it goes on for long enough that it started feeling repetitive. The best parts of the book are when the crew has to do their job and fight back against their enemies, be they Nazis or otherwise. These sequences are thrilling and evocative, and are part of what brought the book home for me. There are a few action sequences full of heart-pounding moments and thrills, especially late in the book.

I did like Fata Morgana, but it feels like this review landed a bit more on the negative side than I intended. I think this a book for a certain type of reader laser-focused on verisimilitude, even in their science fiction. I don’t generally fall into that category, but I can still appreciate a story well-told.

Originally posted at Full of Words… (meer)