Florida-based nature enthusiast and author Jeff VanderMeer has built an admirable following for himself as a writer of environmental horror and an editor of science-fiction. In fact, his and his wife’s The Big Book of Modern Fantasy, released earlier this spring, features a short story by Memphian Sheree Renée Thomas. Who knew, though, that VanderMeer would turn out to be such a fine author of Young Adult fantasy? It may seem strange, but his A Peculiar Peril (FSG) finds the author at home with the genre.
When A Peculiar Peril begins, Jonathan Lambshead, a newly orphaned 16-year-old, has been tasked with cataloguing the contents of his eccentric hoarder grandfather’s house. The task is further complicated by the increasingly odd instructions of Stimply, the estate agent, who delivers all his odd missives by telephone — usually shouted distractedly over some clamor in the background.
Then things get really (delightfully) strange when Jonathan learns his grandfather was a member of the Order of the Third Door, a society dedicated to preserving the safety of the parallel worlds. The Order is, by definition, in staunch opposition to the proposed imperial conquest of all parallel worlds by Aleister Crowley, the big bad and Lord Master of the Franco-Germanic Empire. (You read that right.)
Crowley is hellbent on conquering Aurora, Earth’s parallel, where animals talk, magic coexists with science, and Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are inventors at war with each other. Then Crowley intends to turn his ambitions to the rest of the multiverse. Unless, of course, Jonathan and the Order of the Third Door can stop the parallel world’s mad magician.
Ditte Valente
Jeff VanderMeer
From the Order to the Franko-Germanic Empire, A Peculiar Peril teems with an eclectic cornucopia of characters. There’s a talking marmot, the siblings Danny and Rack (Jonathan’s friends), Lady Insult, Kristýna the Czech spy, and so many others. The book is a feast for the imagination.
“Most of the things the Builders made are powerful or scary or both. Their real names have power, a kind of … beckoning,” Lady Insult explains to Jonathan in a rare expository moment. “So we call them by other names. Ordinary names. Absurd names. The more ridiculous the name, the better.”
Thus is A Peculiar Peril’s absurdity woven into the plot as well. It’s a delightful trick, though the reader will best enjoy the novel by making up their mind to just go with it. At the beginning of Chapter 13, a Decree from the Lord Master Crowley is “glued to lampposts and fired in crumpled bunches from mecha-bears screaming out the decree from their megaphone mouths.” That the decree — one condemning a pileup of garbage in an occupied Paris’ streets — will only result in more “crumpled bunches” of litter is part of the joke.
A Peculiar Peril is a bit meandering, but that can be a strength as well. It’s the sort of novel a middle-school-aged version of myself would have enjoyed spending a summer reading. It describes other worlds and unseen corners of our own Earth — and who can fault someone, author or explorer, with devoting the time to such rapt and reverent discovery?
Thank you to Cotton Tails, the place to find unique children's clothing and shoes, located in the Laurelwood Shopping Center, and Literacy Mid-South for sponsoring this children’s book review! Learn more about the various programs offered by Literacy Mid-South by visiting their site literacymidsouth.org and following them on Facebook and Instagram @literacymidsouth.