Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Between --by Kerry Schafer


Fiction, Fantasy
295 pages (mass paperback)
Footnotes / Endnotes: No
Illustrations: No
Suitable for eReaders: Yes
4 Stars

This is a debut novel, and I believe this writer has a great future ahead of her. She took on an ambitious subject and turned it into a great story. There are three worlds our heroine, Dr. Vivian Maylor, lives in: Wakeworld, where she is a no-nonsense ER doctor, deals in facts and figures, is used to controlling her world and all in it. There is Dreamworld, which comes when she sleeps, where she has little if any control, and in fact isn't even sure of the rules. And there is Between, that world where one is between the other two.

That between world is one of my most favorite worlds. Not so our intrepid heroine. I spend almost an hour every night, and if I'm lucky, an hour every morning in that between world. I would not necessarily want to spend any time in Vivian Maylor's Between!

Between is an adult novel. I think I'd call it modern high fantasy, complete with swords, sorcerers, and dragons. And a penguin. In fact, Poe (the penguin) is probably my favorite character. (Never compete with small children or animals, they win every time! ;-) Rape happens, death happens, dragons happen. What is real? What is dream? Where is Between?

Ms. Schafer has done a great job of world building; her dragons are more closely related to those of fairy tales than those of Anne McCaffrey. Perhaps this should be called a modern fairy tale. It has all the elements of an old one, just brought up to date.

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