The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl - book review
The other night I finished the latest book Ive been reading. Its called, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, and is written by Tim Pratt. This book is Pratts first foray into novel writing, at least, the first foray into writing and publishing a novel and I have to say I was very impressed by what I read. The book was really good.
Basically, the Strange Adventures of Rangergirl is a story about a girl, Marzi, who inadvertently opens a door into another world where a demi-god or an almost-god lives in captivity. The very act of Marzi opening the door changes who the gatekeeper of the door is and inadvertently Marzi becomes the gatekeeper of this particular portal. The previous gatekeeper was someone who you hear about throughout the entire book.
Marzi is the central protagonist the one point of view that Pratt seems to follow more than anyone else; however, there are several other key characters, most of whom you get to read what is happening from their perspective. First is Lindsay, Marzis best from her years in art school and who is now in graduate school at Santa Cruz University. Then theres Jonathan, a tall, dark and handsome type fellow who is broody but interested in the last works of Garamond Ray; Alice, Lindsays lover; Hendrix, the manager of Genius Loci; and then there is the ever talked about but never present Garamond Ray, an artist that disappeared during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.
There are several bad guys. For example The Outlaw who is trapped behind the door that Marzi unexpectedly opens; Beej, another graduate art student who, apparently, has pretty poor oral hygiene; Jane, an academic advisor at Santa Cruz University and a worshiper of an earth goddess; and Dennis, another graduate art student who is obsessed with routine, numbers, and cleanliness (art seems like a really strange choice of career for someone obsessed with cleanliness because the creation of art is not a clean process). However, The Outlaw is the principle antagonist in this story and isthe influencing factor for all things evil that happen throughout the course of this book. He cant open the door (at this point only Marzi can do that) but he can whisper through small cracks, send his essenceout to meet with various people (e.g. Beej, Jane, etc.) and influence the people that visit Genius Loci regularly to do his bidding. Well, he can influence most everyone with the exception of Marzi, she seems to be immune to his whisperings and tauntings until he is released.
The reason I purchased this book, quite honestly, was because I was surfing around the internet like I do most days while taking calls and waiting for calls to come in at work, and came across a short blurb for a book that was described as a cross between a western and a fantasy novel and the reviewer, who describing the book, did not give this particular one a very pleasant or positive review at all. In my mind I thought, Wow, what a great and unique concept, combine characteristics of the fantasy genre with westerns and, WOW!, you have something entirely new. Theres a lot of potential in this kind of writing. Think about it. Take Arthurian legend (which is where a lot of modern fantasy originates) move the applicable elements forward, magic, wizard, witches, demons, dragons, etc., and then put it in the Old West where there are gunslingers, Indians, the unknown, box canyons, etc., and you really do have an idea that I think has a lot of potential.
So, I decided to Wish List the book on Amazon.com because of the short blurb and then went to Borders to buy it when it was released but never really thought I could get into actually reading the book. My reason is simple: support the sub-genre in the hopes that someone will be inspired to write something that is REALLY good, or passably good, and then buy the next author who succeeds, and the next until there are a sufficient number of books or authors thinking and writing in the genre to justify picking and choosing the books that might be better than other. This is actually an interesting reaction from me as I am notinterested in fantasy or science fiction writing, for the most part (there are some authors I like) and as a result of this I read Robert Jordan when he publishes a new book and few other authors.
What was surprising to me, after I got past the formatting on each chapter first page, was how well this book was written, how much it succeeded in keeping me interested; and how much it wasnt like what that first reviewer had indicated. Rangergirl is a book that is set in modern day Santa Cruz and deals with a comic book that is set in an alternative west with a bad guy who cant be killed and can appear as anything it wants to anyone it wants and which keeps the stories of Rangergirl flowing forward time and again so that Marzi has something to do. Marzi, herself, is an art school dropout because of a nervous breakdown that she had when she opened the door slash cork in the bottle keeping The Outlaw away and the first half of the book deals with her coming to terms with what happened. Well, it might be more than the first half, maybe first two-thirds because she has to get to know Jonathan and the reader needs to get to know Lindsay and her, sometimes, ambiguous sexuality as well as Beej, Dennis, and Jane and their individual paranoias.
By the time we get to the point where The Outlaw comes to life, the reader is actually about ready to see The Outlaw get out and wreak some havoc. There is only so much self doubt and personal animosity that you can read before you want the protagonist and her posse to finally get that behind them and start dealing with what is happening right now. Now, once The Outlaw is released from his prison Marzi and Lindsay get to go into the Old West for a few chapters and, admittedly, I would love to see what the artist was thinking Lindsay looked like in her Miss Kittydress, as well as what Marzi looked like as Rangergirl complete with six shooters at her hips, but none of that really matters (regardless of how much time Pratt talks about guys pining over Marzi because she is attractive or at least more attractive than the extremely cute slash attractive Lindsay) because their time in the desert is spent trying to figure out how to kill The Outlaw, discovering the extent of Marzis powers (this wouldve been far more effective had Marzi been dealing with these powers from the get go and suddenly, actually, realized she could change things when in or around Genius Loci), and saving a friend while releasing the previous gatekeeper.
I found this book to be a very fun read. Certainly, there are elements and aspects to the writing that made me look at the book as a whole and think, Not a top five book, but one that did allow me to lose myself within thefantasy realms that Pratt created for his characters. Another element to the book that was exciting and entertaining was the descriptions of, and around, Santa Cruz that reminded me of my time there. Back about ten or eleven or so years ago I spent about six months in Santa Cruz and a lot of that time in many of the different places that Pratt described Marzi, Lindsay, and Jonathan going to. My time there was after Loma Prieta and so a lot of the description made me remember things and places I hadnt dealt with in a very long time. It was a lot of fun because I really liked the Santa Cruz area and even, once, thought about going to UCSC (University of California at Santa Cruz, the actual university there, NOT Santa Cruz University though where the school is built and how it is set-up is somewhat accurate, from my memory).
One other thing that jumped out at me, yesterday, was that Genius Loci is the protective spirit of a place. In the case of Santa Cruz and the coffee shop, during the course of the book, is Marzi and she works at the Genius Loci coffee shop where the malevolent demon is trapped and trying to break free. Very nice. I actually only stumbled across this definition while looking up some information on Celtic Mythology and then stumbling from one link to another (while trying to find an inappropriate Celtic God to use to describe a coworker) until I saw and read what Genius Loci was and thought, Appropriate.
In all, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, is an excellent tale that really made me very impressed with Tim Pratts writing and makes me wonder what he is going to do next. Thats me, always wondering what is coming next. But in this case, I think Pratt can write another book in the Marzi-verse and do it well, the ending, in my opinion, left the door open for another adventure and another trip through the doorway into the West beyond the west. Great book and a great job.