TITLE: Mourning Cloak
AUTHOR: Rabia Gale
GENRE: Fantasy / Science Fiction
PUBLISHED: 1/11/2013
RATING: ★★★★☆
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon Barnes&Noble
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Review: Once again Rabia Gale has written a novella that is neither exactly fantasy, nor is it exactly science fiction. It still doesn't fit into the blend I'd call steampunk either. I heard the term "science fantasy" recently, and that seems the best description I've seen so far of this style.
The Mourning Cloak referred to in the title isn't an actual cloak, nor is it a descriptive state of being of someone in mourning, it is actually a type of being. It would be similar to titling a book "Vampire" or "Ghost," though I'm starting to have difficulty picturing the author ever using a creature so mundane! For lack of a more skilled description, a mourning cloak might be described as an ethreal assassin. From the novella -
By the way, kudos to the author and Ravven for Ravven's striking cover art of the mourning cloak.I’m not fooled. I’ve seen a mourning cloak slide through a wall and spear a man’s heart with a fingernail.
The Mourning Cloak is the story of Kato, a man tortured by his past, and a rather unusual Mourning Cloak that drops into his life. Both serve to illustrate that "you can't judge a book by it's cover," and neither are what they seem on the surface. Indeed, you will come to find out that even what they believe of themselves may not be close to the truth!
In what I am starting to expect from this author, we are thown abruptly into a fresh, new, and highly unusual world. It's a little disconcerting, kind of like dropping into a convertible going 60 miles an hour! The shock diminishes as we learn juicy little tidbits about the world we're sojurning in, and the author manages to keep the characters from being smothered by their surrounding world.
I still feel this author's biggest strength is her ability to paint with words. Rather than note again that she reminds me of Alice Hoffman, I feel it's best just to quote a few examples.
The warding bells on my door jangle. A party of bright young things, cheeks red from the cold, sweep in with a dance of colored ribbons and sparkles at their throats. Lights flicker in the square behind them. Across the street, shadowy figures bubble out of the double doorway of the rhyme house. The taste of night is as bitter as sorrow on my lips. The smoky caress of death lingers on my face."
The wind gusts in, wild and electric, from the five mountain lakes that surround the city. Tall peaks shred the clouds around them; the tattered remains scud across the sky. No, this is a night for the creatures of air and fire, for flashes and eerie men and wind swifts.
This could have easily been a novel. Not a novel that wanders about and wastes pages teaching us the A B C's of Kato's world, but a novel that allows us to explore and taste even more of this wondrous and frightening landscape. The story told in the novella is all there however, and I didn't get the sense a slightly rushed ending as I did with Rainbird. I did wish for an epilogue however. That's been dealt with though and I'll share the solution shortly.
There's little here that would be a problem for a YA audience, but it's an adult novella. It's adult in the ability to grasp some of the complexities of the characters and their backgrounds, particularly Kato. I feel the author's growing in skill as she continues to write and it's reflected in the cohesiveness of the story and qualities of the resolution.
The Mourning Cloak needs a sequel. Not that it's incomplete, but there is a definite sense of more to be told. Could it have been told if the Mourning Cloak had gone novel length? Maybe. But my sense of what story (that I need to hear) is what comes after, or perhaps even the untold part of the story that came before. Here we are in luck. Despite the author's professed fear of sequels, she does say she's writing one for the Mourning Cloak tentatively called Ironhand. I'll be waiting.
I enjoyed the Mourning Cloak, even more than Rainbird, and would recommend it to all unless you have some sort of phobia about sci-fi or fantasy. It was a refreshing change from the "in book three the third vampire of the group gets his HEA" titles, or the books where the hero/heroine narrowly prevents the apocolypse with just a smidge of singed hair. Disclaimers - I recieved a copy for review purposes and also I had no connection with it's Mobilism release. These factors didn't affect my review any, but I felt it better said than not. I would recommend either buying a copy if you like it and/or posting a review online to spread the word.