Wiz Duos 2 - Song, Stone, Sail, Bone by Juliet Kemp and Bring Me Home by EM Faulds
I would like to thank Wizards Tower Press for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Wizards Tower Press
Published - Out Now
Price - £13 paperback £4.99 ebook via https://www.wizardstowerbooks.com/shop/wiz-duos-book-2/
Two novellas in one volume.
Song, Stone, Scale, Bone by Juliet Kemp
When Sir Cade, Knight of Siremos, is asked to escort a noble lady into the catacombs, she thinks she’s getting a foolish thrill-seeker who will faint at the first sign of actual danger. Little does she realise that she is about to embark on a quest to save her country from being drawn into a war with a neighbouring kingdom.
Grieving the death of her companion Graf, Cade has lost her taste for rollicking adventure, but now she must grapple with ghosts, dragons, bone mages and political intrigue to heal her country and herself.
Take Me Home by E. M. Faulds
A tunnel is a hole, an absence, but also a conduit and a connection.
On one side of the world, Selen is looking for someone to be, and she thinks the spacetech alloy elagite may give her a way to rebel against her parents, impress her boyfriend and tap into her natural talents, whatever those might be. On the other side, in the Australian desert, her sister Phoebe has been drawn into an environmentalist cult: undercover, she finds it is far stranger and more dangerous than she could have expected. The girls’ fates entwine in a way that could change things for everyone.
One of the best things about reading is exploring how different authors play with a similar theme. You can have completely different settings and yet note resonances between two tales. In Wiz Duos 2 - edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall we have a fantasy and science fiction novella both very successfully exploring characters unsure where they’re going and having to put the work in to work this out.
Song, Stone, Sail, Bone by Juliet Kemp - this was a really engaging story as Sir Cade tells us of how she reluctantly agreed to take a noble woman named Arel into the legendary dangerous catacombs to find a new bone fragment to save her family’s honour. This is a lovely bit of storytelling mixing light and dark to give us a very flowing story that also has a twinkle in their eye. You quickly sense fun will be had when we find one of the best at to face in the catacombs is the dangerous Minitaurs - smaller versions of the famous creature but just as pesky! Despite that the book also has stakes and a lovely humanity to it as the characters w meet all try to do the right thing. I’m going to be circumspect on the plot and well we meet along the way because the reveals work as we take unexpected directions and choices appearing throughout. It does focus on preventing a war which also feels quite refreshing too.
The humanity comes from Cade’s narration. They’re sarcastic, slightly annoyed at Arel’s bossiness and yet we quickly sense in Cade a person hiding from their past. They’re loitering in the archives not being the knight on the road they used to be and a key part of the tale is Cade finding their path and coming to terms with their past and guilt. You don’t sense massive jeopardy but the solutions we keep getting are inventive enough that I don’t mind that things turn out alright. It has a possibility of more tales for Cade and I would be fascinated to see what happens next
Take Me Home by E M Faulds is a much grittier tale as we move to the future where the world is wrecked by climate change and most of the U.K. is underwater. In Ben Lomond we meet Selen a thirty something possibly eternal student who has decided to help her find herself a new body modification a tunnel through her body which will also be fused with elagite that is known to give users abilities for art and try not to think about any risk of side effects. Meanwhile in the Australian desert Selen’s older sister Phoebe has out stayed her visa but is about to join a mysterious group (possibly cult) in the desert provided she can prove she can be trusted.
Initially these tales are looking just thematically linked as both sisters are feeling a bit lost. Their choices both seem to be about giving their life some meaning. Selen is very much that young person we’ve all been feeling lost at what is next. Trying on different ideas for something to stick and an added not exactly healthy relationship with a DJ and a fractious relationship with her mum and dads is also not helping. You can feel Selen’s confusion, frustration and questioning of herself in her narration that makes a genuinely interesting character and then this new tunnel through her torso don’t the panacea she wanted. As the weird side effects start things get quickly interesting but also it’s a message that art doesn’t really come from outside.
The bigger plotline is about the world the sisters inhabit and slowly we see a world that’s gone through turmoil. Various disasters get mentioned and we see humanity has largely had to leave earth for working and living in space. This neatly pulls us to Phoebe’s sections where we have a grittier tale and realise both Phoebe and her new group are hiding secrets from each other. The more Phoebe explored we get hints of personal danger but also realise Earth isn’t quite what the sisters think it is and it raises some moral ambiguity as to what the right course of action should be. Just as much as we have Selen’s weird tunnel in her body doing thing thematically there is a tunnel developing between these two plots and how the sisters need each other to help conclude the start of their journeys. It’s delivered really engaging and while that bigger plotline moves the key for me is where the sisters end up at a character level.
Another great duo and I think proved the idea of linked but different novella in one book is well worth picking up. Highly recommended!
