New Book Alert: Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality Book 2: Certain in the Circumvention by Francessca Bella; When Things Aren't Particularly Fanciful or Fantastical

 

New Book Alert: Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality Book 2: Certain in the Circumvention by Francessca Bella; Calista Shines Even When Things Aren't Particularly Fanciful or Fantastical

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: 

The lovely lady with the awesome alliterative moniker is back. Calista Soleil, the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality Overseer of Port Sunshinescence has returned for a new adventure in Certain in the Circumvention, the second book in Francessca Bella's Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality series.

To recap in the first book, Calista is a young woman of tremendous power and responsibility. She led a rebellion on Earth against the despots and became a leader in the new community that thrives in space by the sunlight. She made a return trip to Earth when a terrifying omen foretold Earth's destruction. Calista traveled to Earth and made new friends: Lavender, a former scientist for the sinister Moonbow Laboratoria, Sagan, a warrior, and Teal, an Earth citizen with precocious talent but little education to pursue it. Along the way, Calista saves Earth, refers Teal to study at her alma mater, Chromia Academy, and faces her own arrogance and prejudices to become a true hero.

In Certain in the Circumvention, Calista is called into service once again. People can visit or move to the Principality of Sunshinescence as long as they have Aureate tickets. The problem is none of the Aureate ticket holders are showing up. Something or someone is preventing them from going to the Principality. Calista has to go down to Earth to find out why and what's holding them back. Not a moment too soon. Because there are some disgruntled employees who think a change in Overseer is definitely in order.

Just like in the previous book, Calista is dissected underneath the sunshiny goddess-like persona. In this volume, Calista's reputation is in danger of giving her away so she has to go incognito. She goes to Earth as a normal person with the same name. (More people know her by the title than her real name.)

Being deprived of her title, reputation, and abilities brings Calista down to the level of most people around her. She can't use her influence or power to learn what happened to the Aureate ticket holders. So she has to feel her way around by asking questions, observing her surroundings, and finding evidence.

Taking a vulnerable regular form humbles Calista. She isn't as polarizing as she is in the first book, very unyielding and somewhat arrogant. However, she shows flashes of it in this book. In the first book, the narrative implied that Calista befriended Teal and would take an active interest in her life. However, we find out that is not the case. Calista and Teal have grown apart and haven't spoken in years, something that Teal regrets. However, they continue to help each other as Teal provides Calista with assistance in finding where the ticket holders were sent.

However, Calista is a much improved character than she was before. She is still a courageous and compassionate leader, but she is much more nuanced in her approach. She has a lighter personality, even a sense of humor at times. She is even willing to consider various options. In one chapter, she sarcastically jokes that she is considering harming someone with violence, something that she wouldn't have done in the previous book (either harming someone or joking). It's a little moment but she's showing a more human facet to her character.

She also receives some challenges to her name and character. Calista learns some secrets about her family that calls to question everything that she previously believed. These revelations are key to her questioning her identity, background, and why she became the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality.

Calista also once again comes face to face with Moonbow Laboratoria and the Moonites who continue to be thorns in the sides of Sunshinescence. Some of the most fascinating conflicts are between Calista and Luna, a representative of the Moon. To use Jungian archetypes, Luna is Calista's Shadow Self, her opposite. 

Throughout the book, Calista's vulnerability and humanity are laid open. These make her more identifiable and human especially when she faces Luna. In some ways, Luna is what Calista could be if her arrogance and colder nature get the better of her. To face her other self, she has to recognize the real her hidden underneath the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality. Luna unleashes the monster. Calista unleashes the woman.

There is a third book in the series and it will be interesting to see where Bella takes her character as she learns more about the worlds around her and herself.

New Book Alert: Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality (Overture for the Overawed) by Francessca Bella; Descriptive Character Driven Science Fiction Novel Goes Deceptively Deep Into Concepts of Heroism and Belief

 New Book Alert: Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality (Overture for the Overawed) by Francessca Bella; Descriptive Character Driven Science Fiction Novel Goes Deceptively Deep Into Concepts of Heroism and Belief

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Stop me if you heard this one: a young woman leads a rebellion, fights a dictatorship, and finds the courage within herself to become the heroine that her people need. She becomes the leader of her new community and obtains legendary, almost mythical status. 

Well, on the surface Francessca Bella's novel, Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality Overture for the Overawed, appears to be that kind of book about that kind of heroine. But if you look deeper, you will see more meaning behind the book. You will see the human being behind the legend.

The heroine that has achieved legendary status after her rebellious heroism is Calista Soleil who is the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality (say that five times fast). Besides having an awesomely alliterative moniker, Calista also is the Overseer of the Port of Sunshinescence in the Principality of Sunshinescence (another mouthful). Her people are very spiritual and worship the sun as a goddess. Many admire Calista as much as they admire the sun. Many would love to just bask in her loveliness. Everyone thinks of her as a great leader and heroine. Everyone except sometimes Calista Soleil.

Calista feels that she has lost her way so she returns to her alma mater, Chromia Academy. When that doesn't work out, she tries to send a message to her family. While communicating with them, she sees a frightening image of a firebird, a phoenix, striking the Earth. Over the centuries, because of war, pollution, and greed, Earth is blocked from the sun. The people of Earth have mostly been reduced to a barbaric survivalist existence willing to listen to the latest fanatical cult leader who says that the moon is all that they need.

Calista fears that the Phoenix is the sun's final warning, the anger that humanity took advantage of its resources long enough and now will be destroyed. She wants to go to Earth to help the people. Calista gets assistance on her mission with her new friends, Lavender, a scientist who once worked for the sinister and secretive Moonbow Laboratories and Sagen, who also worked for Moonbow and is handy with a weapon, and willing to use them despite objections from the pacifistic Calista. The trio face not only the people of Earth but a cult leader who wants the Earthlings to turn from the sun and worship the moon.

What makes this book stand out is the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality herself, or rather the alleged Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality. Despite her legendary status, Calista doesn't always feel fancy, fanciful, or fantastic. We aren't shown the legend that led her to these titles. We are given hints here and there but that's not what this book is about. This is about what happens after the goal is achieved and the new leader is made. This is meant to peel away the legend and see that there is a real person, a real person of flaws and virtues, a complex human being. Somehow in exploring Calista's humanity makes her even more heroic.

In many ways, Calista exemplifies all of the positive traits that someone of her station should possess. She is very courageous and thirsty for adventure. She goes to Earth knowing full well the state that it's in and that she may not return. She exhibits good leadership skills and takes decisive action. When she, Lavender, and Sagen find themselves in a trap and encounter betrayal, Calista is able to get them out. She also shows a compassionate side in that she is willing to help the Earthlings get out of the predicament that they are in. She also befriends Teal, an Earth citizen who is quite intelligent and would be a good candidate to attend Chromia Academy. Perhaps, Calista sees something of her younger self in her, so she encourages Teal in her intellectual pursuits. Like the sun that she represents, Calista tries to exhibit warmth and light to all around her. 

Optimum word is tries because Calista does not always succeed. Sometimes the reasons are found within herself. Ironically, someone who represents the sun's warmth also acts very cold, forbidding, and polarizing. She acts in a very arrogant manner at times. When she visits Chromia Academy, she doesn't remember the names of the student or even an instructor who came to the school and made an enormous impact on her young life. She came to the school hoping to find some positive connections but instead all she remembers is how isolated that she was.

 The isolation continues when she is with her family. Calista realizes that her people depend on her so much that they have forgotten to think for themselves. They are enchanted by the image that they created around her and in some ways so is she.

Calista is at times guilty of many of the things that she accuses others of being. She thinks that the Earthlings she encounters are mostly intolerant and judgemental but fails to recognize those attributes within herself. Her younger brother, Tybalt and sister, Berrie at first accompany her. But when they are told that the journey is dangerous and even fatal, they turn around and go back. Rather than expressing concern about her sibling's safety or understanding their decision, Calista berates them and calls them cowards. Then she stridently declares that few can be as brave as she can. 

Even though she later supports Teal when she learns what a big help that she has been, she is at first surprised that someone from Earth is so intelligent. She also says that not just anybody can join the Chromia Academy, only the elite with connections. Luckily, she ends up becoming that connection so she is able to drop much of her earlier snobbery.

Calista can be uncompromising in her views. She gets into a science vs. spirituality debate with Lavender and argues with Sagen about using weapons even in self defense. She criticizes the fear mongering Moonite cult for denying the evidence of the sun's presence and their insistence of only living for the moon. However, she is just as single minded in her devotion in the sun and has a cult-like following herself (not one of her designs, but she still wields the same power.) In fact, this aspect of the book could be a metaphor for many of the views that people hold on to nowadays. I won't say which views but it's not hard to connect the dots. 

To her credit, Calista knows that she has those negative qualities and works to change them within herself. One of Calista's signs of maturity is her willingness to see her friend's sides and work together with them. 

In her journey to her past, she tries to find the adventurous brave young woman that she once was before her pride and following got the better of her. Perhaps, she feels that she is unworthy of the titles that she has received. This adventure on Earth is a source of self-redemption to become a better person, one who earns the right to be called the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality.

These negative and positive qualities are what actually make Calista a great character. The conflicts with the Moonite cult, the Earth citizens, and the elements are important. But the biggest conflict of all is the one with herself.

With a very human protagonist who saves the Earth and learns about herself, Bella's book truly is fancy, fanciful, and fantastical.