Synopsis:
Dralen never could leave well enough alone.
He knows better than to go near the canyons. That’s where the Logans live, wild men of the hills said to devour lone travelers in frenzied midnight feasts.
But the mysterious cloaked figure he saw down by the canyons had to be there for a reason. And he can’t get his Urpa’s poem out of his head: something about “They of the West” and “Treasures buried in memory’s mine.”
Folks used to mine for topaz in the canyons, and other stones too. Magical ones, some said. But the Logans and the cave-in put an end to all that.
Dralen knows he’ll get in trouble if he goes after the cloaked figure, and he’s doubly sure he doesn’t care. Maybe They know something everyone else has forgotten in this little nothing town. Dralen is called to follow Them, but the closer he gets to unraveling the mystery, the more it seems his own journey is just beginning…
Review:
*I read this novella as part the judging group The Secret Scribes for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS) semi-finals phase. The following review is strictly my personal thoughts as each novella will be reviewed by two judges to be as objective as possible.*
They of the West is a personal journey for two young people in a frontier-esque world they desperately wish to get out of. There is some speculative fiction woven into this story, but it is mostly a character growth arc.
Dralen and his buddy Jaela are two young teens living in a western-style land, their families just trying to survive. In the valleys surrounding their homesteads are the mysterious Logans, people said to eat and steal anyone who encroach on their territory, only coming out at night. Plus any number of made up myths. Dralen just wants more than his life has to offer, same with Jaela as she basically takes care of her siblings while her mother gets drunk. After witnessing a shadowy person (They of the West) and having a familial-passed-down vision relating to his long missing uncle, Dralen decides to go find this ‘They’ and Jaela tags along with him. A journey abounds with personal and emotional growth for both.
Both Dralen and Jaela are POV characters and they are both the quintessential teens who want more in life. Dralen feels stuck in his life, and Jaela even moreso since she’s a girl and in the western-like world of the Scrublands, women stay home and care for the family (and have families). So both want out. I found their friendship to be wholesome, and both had the same innate drive to be better than what they were given. But they also had a lot of fears and personal demons. Both were great characters to follow.
I found this novella, like most of Dani Finn’s stories, to be very character driven in nature, mainly in the idea of nature v nurture. Because of the LGBT+ nature of both main characters, the literal journey of trying to discover who ‘They’ is is far more figurative in that ‘They’ represents a new future. Both Dralen and Jaela want to shed the trappings of simple life in the Scrublands, to be someone other than who their families want them to be. And when Dralen discovers the truth about his missing family member and what happened to them, Dralen finally comes to an understanding about his own journey in life. There is something powerful in this message, one we all should take to heart.
As for the particulars of this novella, the pace is steady, the vibe is very western without the outlaws. Like all Dani Finn stories, the prose is solid. The plot is complete and we are not inundated with too much lore (though see below). I will say some of the ‘tension’ of the plot is more YA or Goonies level than bloody adult ala Raiders of the Lost Ark, where our characters were really never in too much trouble. But that never detracted from the story on the whole. And since I have to nitpick for a competition, I will say I felt this story straddled the line of personal growth v spec fic too much to the personal growth side. The Logans, the other bits of fantastical lore, kinda fell a bit short for me, I would have loved a lot more tension surrounding these things, especially when They shows up.
Overall, They of the West is a great tale about growth, one that sheds a light on one being stuck in a place or ideal when they want nothing more than to break free.
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