Some of my best-loved books of the past few age have been National Book Award winners from the Young People ’s Literature category . If you care having your heart pull out , stomp on a few times and shoved back in your dresser , you ca n’t baffle winners like Sherman Alexie ’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian or Kathryn Erskine ’s Mockingbird . Alas , they ’re both just unconstipated ol’ fiction . So I was frantic to see that a phantasy novel had succeed this twelvemonth .
preceding authors who have won in this category with fantasy books include Ursula K. LeGuin , Lloyd Alexander and Madeleine L’Engle . First time writer William Alexander ’s winning mediate ground level novel Goblin Secrets had a bunch to experience up to . And , though it has occasional flashes of brilliance , the story never seems to come together in a satisfying whole .
The novel convey blank space in the city of Zombay ( a name that far too silly , conjuring thoughts of the video game “ Plants vs. Zombies ” – I imagine Dr. Zomboss getting his degree at the University of Zombay ) . It ’s a city of dark enigma that are tardily revealed . The Northside of Zombay is moneyed , with streets on a gridiron system and rule by a mayor who wrench out to be very corrupt , in his single scene . Across the Fiddleway Bridge and the Zombay River is Southside . Southside is full of twisting streets , poverty , dock and is rule by Graba . Graba is a Baba Yaga - esque witch – she ’s on clockwork bird legs , not the family ! but the house still move ! – who collects orphans to melt down errands for her . This include Rownie , our hero .
late the Mayor has pass on an anti - theater / anti - mask law in Zombay and Rownie ’s older brother Rowan may or may not have escaped hitch from the precaution . The guard all have clockwork legs that force them to march everywhere , which make it seem like they should be easy to draw away from , but ostensibly not . The safety machine captain also has clockwork eyes with gears for irises , which does n’t make sense , but does let Alexander write lines about the police chief ’s “ ticking regard , ” which is fun . Rownie miss his comrade , though he does n’t in reality seem to have gone look for him and it ’s not clear how long ago he disappeared – we learn of Rowan ’s fade in flashback – but the whole thing gets going when Rownie decides to slip from Graba and sneak off to see a Goblin sport .
The Goblins are not technically citizen of Zombay and get to skirt the laws about putting on plays and wearing masks and they ask in Rownie to do so too . It turns out he ’s pretty dependable at play . The goblins , who were once human but have been Changed ( with a Das Kapital letter ) and prefer being call Tamlins – though the book normally does n’t , even after we ’ve been told – also hate the city manager and hated by Graba . The Tamlins make up the third leg of the somewhat remaining political secret plan of the novel , about citizenship and gentrification and fair-mindedness and unfairness of laws .
All three groups are look for Rowan , though it ’s not light why until pretty late in the story . Also , the floods are coming . Except they ’ve never come before , it ’s just something people say . theatre is magical , except also there ’s literally sorcerous . Aside from clockwork there are zombie which are power by burn coal . Except ember is n’t something mine from the earth – it ’s made from the hearts of humans and fauna . Which can be replace by clockwork to make slaves and mindless workers . The whole novel is broken up into “ Acts ” and “ Scenes ” instead of books and chapters . Though , these designations are merely cosmetic , not morphological or designate actual conniption shifts . Which I think about covers the set - up .
Alexander can not be faulted in any style for being unimaginative or ambitionless , certainly . And his writing has a endearing and often poetic feel to it . There ’s particularly excellent sequence toward the terminal of the Holy Writ of a tool show that manage to compound the shudder of the illicit , the thaumaturgy of theater , a possible threat to the Tamlin and allow a healthy dose of world - building and character chronicle . It ’s also the only time the gambling in the new move beyond folks tarradiddle or morality plays into something more interesting . The gaming itself also provides a clue for the enmity between two party who want the same affair . Though it may have left a petty too much ambiguity . Despite succession like this the story as a whole feel continually unwieldy and puzzling .
by from Rownie ’s half - hearted search for his brother – the flap copy allege he go to the Tamlin play looking for his comrade , though the textual matter make it clear he did n’t recognise his brother knew the Tamlins – and the political devilment , ecumenical enslavement of the great unwashed , etc . , the threat of the Good Book is the flooding of the Zombay River . This is introduce about a third of the way into the book , forthwith undercut as a scourge and also sound like “ winter is coming ” from Game of Thrones . It was n’t until the last third of the Bible that I realise this was what the leger was about . This was n’t the only time I got lost in Alexander ’s overstuff cosmos – the first few time he describes “ power shovel ” I thought they were some sort of ghost story the street kids told each other and not clockwork - hearted slaves .
Like many child protagonists in fantasy , Rownie does n’t know much about the world around him and we mostly encounter things through his eyes . With the Tamlins , this is interesting : he hears a lot of lies and bad information and is disabused of his speciesist ideas . But with other matter , it ’s just odd . After see red Graba , Rownie throws himself from a windowpane and then runs for his life . In the midst of running , Alexander introduces us to another fantastical beast that lives in the dust of Southside and then Rownie considers the possibility that Graba made one of his pursuers out of pigeons . Is this Rownie ’s flying of fancy ? Is it literally possible Graba is that muscular a witch ? It ’s another unreciprocated doubtfulness , like how do the great unwashed alter into Tamlin ? Rownie matte out asks that two of the Tamlin . One ca n’t remember because it was too long ago , though the older one he asks just tells him she wo n’t say him .
While equivocalness works for something like the magic behind the masks the Tamlin and Rownie clothing , straight-out lack of clarity and too many inquiry just bog down the novel . For example , one character tell Rownie that Graba keeps him around because he has “ got a little talent for wear masks , ” except Graba ’s kept Rownie for years and only the solar day before had he ever tried on a masque . And his doing so made her angered . By the terminal you’re able to kind of puzzle out the witch ’s motivating , but not how she knew that Rownie would have this gift . All of this , and more , is throng into a mere 150 pages . By the time it was clear what was important and what was atmospheric windowpane dressing , the rule book was nearly over and the climax hinge on what had seemed to be a throw - away lineage in Act 1 , Scene 1 .
Perhaps I am being overly judgmental , because this seems like a book I should love : I ’m a mask collection , theater fan myself and am a strong truster in challenging new reader with virtuously complex , sometimes equivocal story . Many of the theme in the novel are refreshful or at least interesting twists on the familiar , but they never do me to palpate anything fussy for Rownie , or his lost brother . Perhaps if the patch had been break up over two books , allowing metre for Rownie to actively search for his blood brother or to have a couple adventures away from Zombay , there would have been space to make the stakes and risks clearer or to prove the possible morality of various choices ( perhaps some Southsiders would embrace the city manager ’s programme if it means become out from under the thumb of a hag ) .
Though I did not love Goblin Secrets , that does n’t change the fact that it ’s made a pretty serious spattering for a debut novel . Alexander is an author willing to take risks and he ’s get an telling imagination . After deliver the goods the National Book Award , it ’s in all probability we ’ll be fancy more from him . With any luck , his next entries into the field will have more solid tale to support his flights of fancy .
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