In an Absent Dream

Pros: interesting character, evocative writing, quick paced

Cons:

Katherine Victoria Lundy is content to be the friendless principal's daughter so long as she can read her books. When a mysterious door appears before her one day, she opens it and finds a new world, one with strict rules of fairness. She has until she turns 18 to decide which world she wants to live in, a choice that gets harder the closer the deadline comes.

This is a novella and so can be read in a couple of hours. It's a great, fast paced story that's hard to put down. I liked Katherine's no nonsense behaviour and the world where people state what they want and try to deal fairly with one another (or risk discipline). I can understand why she'd want to live there as there's something comforting in the idea of knowing that no one can take advantage of you.

I thought her choice at the end was believably difficult, with several sides to consider.

The writing was quite beautiful at times. Almost lyrical even.

While part of the Wayward Children series it easily stands alone and you don't need to have read any of the others to fully grasp the story.

This is a great series and a good alternate starting point.

I think the concept of this one was really interesting and I really enjoyed the fantasy worldbuilding in it, but the characters weren't necessarily the most interesting to me, especially following two installments featuring such compelling kids. This was still a good story, absolutely, but Moon and Lundy just didn't strike me in that same captivating way.

Once again we have a stand alone story involving a previous character from the first book, namely Lundy, who is swept off to the Goblin Market and surprisingly a high logic world. I would have liked this volume more had it spent a bit more time in the market itself. I absolutely fell in love with Guillermo del Toro's goblin market in Hellboy 2, so when I read that this book was going to take place there, I was maybe over excited to explore something similar, but the story focuses more on Lundy and her personal journey - which isn't a bad thing - it was just different from my expectations. We still get a good feel for the strangeness of the market, but the focus remains on Lundy and her multiple visits to the market, her friendship with a girl called Moon and how choosing paths in life can be difficult and in this case dangerous. I did enjoy Lundy's journey overall, she was definitely a character I felt akin to in many ways and understood her hesitation to make the ultimate choice between two places and two futures. I felt that theme down to my bones, but as in all of the Wayward Children series, there aren't always happy endings and there are lessons to be learned, and Lundy's story is definitely a cautionary tale. This volume was a good addition to the series, if not quite my favourite, but always engaging and enjoyable. I really enjoy this series overall and each volume proves why with both tie into previous volumes and it's own story to tell. It continues to be unique among the usual fantasy YA genre and I appreciate that a lot. Now the wait until January for the next adventure.

I'm very sad to say this has been my least favorite installment in this series. Starting with the good, though; Seanan McGuire's writing is stunning and gorgeous as ever and I don't think she will ever disappoint on that front. I also fell in love with Lundy, as I always do with our main characters. She was interesting, flawed, and fleshed out, and I will never understand how Seanan McGuire can do that with so few pages. However, this book was very strange because it took place over the longest span of time than any of the other books. There were several exciting things that happened and characters that were just talked about but we never got to see. Why tell me about the cool stuff and then not show me it? I had to hear them talk about a dead girl and a tarantula queen or something but not even that story was ever laid out for us. Instead, we saw a few mundane things happening in each world and then got told that interesting things happened at some other time. The world itself was the least compelling of any we've visited before, as was the moral/theme of the book. As usual, there was one overarching message, almost like a fable. But this books' was mostly about money and payment and I just didn't care. The side characters were lacking as well, which is not typical of this series. I didn't have any sort of connection or understanding of Moon and why she did the things she did. I liked Lundy's little sister more than Moon and I only knew her little sister for about 20 pages! In the end, I defintely didn;t hate this book; in fact, I had a great time reading it and I'm still excited for the next installment. It was just not up to par with what I've come to expect from this series.

This book disappointed, sorry to say. I liked the Goblin Market well enough, but the book skipped the interesting bits of the story and we just have a one-paragraph summary of all the stuff that happened. That was such a bummer, because nothing ever really seems to happen in this book ... since it all happens off-screen and we don't get to do or see any of the quests or the year Lundy spent paying back debts.

I liked the Archivist, but I wasn't too keen on any of the others. Not even Lundy. It'd been so long since I'd read Every Heart a Doorway that I'd completely forgotten who she was so I didn't come into this book disliking her from the start, but she didn't really manage to grow on me.

So sad!!! I suppose Lundy's story could only be sad, but I was hoping for something different from her childhood.

I'm so glad I continued reading this series even though I wasn't impressed with the first few books. This is really what I was hoping this series would be like! It was dream-like and intriguing and unsettling. Beautiful and engaging. I hope the next book in the series will be more like this one!

This was another great instalment in the series and I loved learning Lundy's back story.

Just like the last book, I felt there was just ‘something' small missing for me but I'm yet to put my finger on what, I just found I couldn't connect quite as much as I did with the first two books.

I will of course be continuing with this wonderful series!

Another beautiful book from Seanan McGuire, this time a prequel.

While I wouldn't say this was quite up to the standards of the previous entries in the series, that's like saying lava isn't quite as hot as the sun, they're both pretty darn hot.

I await the next book with bated breath.

5 stars Fair value.

Probably more like a 3.5 but I think this was my least favourite Wayward Children book.

The premise was pretty neat but it just felt like it was missing something.

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In an ordinary town, on a very normal garden path, Katherine Victoria Lundy came to an incredible tree with an impossibly carved door. Through it, she strolled down a hallway whose walls are carved from a single piece of wood that seemed to have no beginning nor end, and came upon signs in neatly done cross stitch declaring rules for this realm, this place that could not be:

Rule One – Ask for nothing.
Rule Two – Names have power.
Rule Three – Always give fair value.
Rule Four – Obey the curfew.

Katherine Victoria Lundy was six years old. This is her story and how she came to the Goblin Market.

In 1964 six-year-old Katherine, never Kat, Kitty, or Kathy, always Katherine, realized that her life was going to eventually end someday. Before that fateful day, her life would be full of planned moments all taking part in a sequence she could already see: School, husband, work as a librarian, eventually children, then death. She neither dreaded nor welcomed the impending onslaught of events, it just was. Even her family was remarkable in its lack of remarkability. Her father is a plain and ordinary school principal. Her mother was round with the impending birth of her younger sister, and her brother was not interested in his much younger sibling. Everything just...was.


“She was ordinary.

She was remarkable.
Of such commonplace
contradictions are weapons made.”
In an absent dream – Seanan McGuire

Katherine is in many ways a typical 8-year old, but her personality shines in many unique ways. Like many kids, she does not understand the vagaries and behavior in her peers – yet she surpasses other children (and probably adults) in her ability to understand the broader picture. It is as if Katherine has a gaping hole in her sense of self and how it is to be a socialized person. Katherine is calm, collected and assured of herself, but she knows that the social aspect of being a kid is something she lacks. So she yearns for that connection. Time passes in the story as it does in life, both very slowly in the minute to minute and all at once like a gale force wind.

Katherine is now 8 years old.

The story progresses, and Katherine becomes more of herself if that is even possible. She is more secure in the knowledge of who she is and what she likes. This is mostly books, something I can identify with. What I enjoy about Seanan Macguires ability to write can be summed up in this chapter, “When is a Door Not a Door.” Children have personality and souls. They are people in all respects except for age, and authors tend to write about children as if they are not people, but characterizations of what we, as a reader think a child should be. Seanan does not. Katherine is a fully developed, albeit young character.

Katherine is presented a door in a twisted Oak tree with the words, “Be Sure” carved across it. And for reasons that even Katherine does not fully understand, she passes through it into the Goblin Market. Here she is assailed with exotic sounds, adventures, and creatures out of imagination and myth rather than reality. As a reader, I can almost picture this scene like when we meet the worm from Labyrinth, “don't go that way...” We also meet a character that becomes a friend, her first therefore best friend, Moon. Katherine, who is now Lundy because true names have power, learns from Moon and The Archivist, another important character, the ins, and outs of the Goblin Market.

The Goblin market is both a setting for the story and even in its own way, a character. The Market is entirely based on perceived fairness. If any deal is struck, words spoke, or actions are taken within the confines of the Market, the Market weighs it against its own standard of fairness. If one fails to make a fair deal, or what is called “fair value,” the market takes action against the perpetrator in the form of debt. Debt, rather than being its typical elusive and abstract concept, actually makes a physical change on the wearer. If the wearer of the debt continues to act against fair value, they will eventually physically transmogrify into a bird. This is the crux of the story. What is fair value?


“She was Katherine, she was the teacher's pet, and when she grew up,
she was going to be a librarian because she couldn't imagine knowing there was a job
that was all about books and not wanting to do it.”
In an absent dream – Seanan McGuire

Does Lundy want to come back? Does she want to stay? How does she give fair value to her family both blood (the human world), and adopted (the Goblin Market.) How does she live in two worlds, and give fair value to herself? Because the Goblin Market is always watching and taking account? I am not going to give it away, and even with the ending of the story and what will be a beginning for Lundy, it is oddly unsatisfying. This isn't a book that wraps morals in a tight and tiny little package to be opened at a later date. Even if I wanted a sweet and happy ending for Lundy, that isn't in the character of the Market and in the bigger picture, The Wayward series. Fairy tales and fairylands are unique and magical and very seldom kind or gentle.

Each of the Wayward Books touches on essential lessons. Seanan creates a character and place around a crucial social concept. This is no different. The resounding lessons I took from reading this book were two-fold. Firstly, a chosen family is as strong and vital as a blood family. Secondly, Fair value is up to the user and is becoming increasingly scarce in our world of apathy. What is fair for one, is not fair for another. Context and experience flavor the users perspective. This story is a small allegory for that concept.

In an Absent Dream can function just as easily as a standalone novel as it does as the fourth in the Wayward series and it is a masterpiece folks. An utterly magical story and I highly recommend reading it.

Thank you to Tor.com for providing me with an ARC of this in exchange for my honest review.

...the worst she was ever called where anyone might here was "teacher's pet," which she took, not as an insult, but rather as a statement of fact. She was Katherine, she was the teacher's pet, and when she grew up, she was going to be a librarian, because she couldn't imagine knowing there was a job that was all about books and not wanting to do it.

Here's a quick recap of this series for those of you who haven't heard about it yet/have ignored everything I've said about the series these last few years: Imagine Children who go off to a magical kingdom for a bit from our world – Narnia, Fillory, the Lands Beyond, Neverland, Lyrian, whatever you call that land on the other side of the fourteenth door in Coraline, etc. – and then return home. Some will go on to live “normal” lives – others can't forget or outgrow their attachment to the magical world – some of those, those who want more than anything to return to whatever was on the other side of the door wind up at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. This series is about some of those children.

There's a basic outline to these books – McGuire introduces you to a Child and a new world. Her language will be lyrical, playful and enchanting. She'll draw you in with the awe and wonder and while you're not looking, she'll set the hook, and you will be as emotionally tied to her characters as you are close family members. Then something devastating will happen to those characters, and you will feel horrible, yet love the experience. No matter what kind of resolution is found in the book (death, rescue, brokenness), when you close the book you'll almost instantly start waiting until the next book comes out, because McGuire is just that good.In this book we meet Katherine – Katherine's never been good at making friends her age (there are justifiable reasons for this), but she likes talking to adults more, she likes rules, and she loves reading. There's something about each Wayward Child that readers can identify with, but Katherine is more relatable to readers than the others have been. One day, Katherine comes upon a tree that hadn't been there before. This tree had a door in it, and before she realized what was happening – she was on the other side of the door, walking down a hall, on her way to a Goblin Market. In the last book, we saw a nonsense world – this is a logic world, through and through. There are rules, enforced by everyone who lives there – and somehow, by the world itself. Unlike that (mostly) tongue-in-cheek outline above, each of these books are so different from the rest, it's hard to compare them – so I'll try not to. But the structure of this seems more different than the others have. So I'm not going to tell you any more about the plot than I have – I'll just say it's a great story, incredibly well told – and even when the narration tells you the ending is not going to be “kind”, you keep expecting/hoping/wanting for things to work out for Katherine and her loved ones. I've made the ending sound bad – it's not “happy,” but I'm not complaining, I'm not criticizing, I'm most definitely not warning a reader away. It's the right ending for this story, it's absolutely how things needed to go – but this is not the Feel-Good Novella of the Year. It is wonderfully written, beautifully written, imaginative, awe-inspiring, delightful, and eventually heartbreaking. McGuire's one of the best at work today – and this is proof of it.Yes, you can read these out-of-order – but I don't recommend it. And hey, were talking 200 pages or less each, you've got time for that. You'll be glad you did (once you stop feeling horrible)—That might be a bit hyperbolic.

Great series

And now I need to re-read the other books - hardly a bad thing though! Hooray for Seanan McGuire and her writing speed!

ugh I LOVE this series so much!! This is another really compelling fantasy world with its own specific rules, and I loved seeing Lundy struggle with the rules of her own American society compared to those of the Goblin Market. There's just so much depth packed into each novella in this series–they rely so smartly on the reader bringing their own knowledge of fairytale tropes to the reading experience but then use that as a diving board to get on in to the deep end.

3.25 out of 5 stars

These novellas have become a delicious morsel to snack on at the beginning of each new year. In an Absent Dream continues that trend with an engaging story about Katherine Lundy, a rule-following young girl who stumbles upon a portal world where fairness is the impetus behind all the laws in the land. Author Seanan McGuire has such an interesting way of communicating sights and sounds and smells to the reader that it's impossible to not be enchanted by the worlds she creates. Each book in the series has featured a unique fairy-tale land and I look forward to seeing what she cooks up next.

As always, it's tough for me to push the rating for a novella beyond 3 full stars, but I did really dig this one. It still feels like a highlight reel of a what could have been a much longer book, though.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.