Weekly Reader: Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality Book 3: Enchantment Now Enshrouds by Francessca Bella; The Fantastical's Third and Best Adventure Takes Her Into a Scientifically Engineered Fantasy

 Weekly Reader: Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality Book 3: Enchantment Now Enshrouds by Francessca Bella; The Fantastical's Third and Best Adventure Takes Her Into a Scientifically Engineered Fantasy 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: A few decades ago, there was a trend that combined Science Fiction and Epic Fantasy. They did this by showing us an agrarian fantasy world of elves, wizards, dwarves,dragons, and feudalism. The Reader at first thinks it's a fantasy world that they are reading about but then the author drops several hints that it is actually a Science Fiction novel set either on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth or on another planet colonized by former Earthlings. The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey and The Chronicles of Shannara by Terry Brooks are some such examples. 

In her third book in the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality series, author Francessca Bella shows the point where the transition between Science Fiction into Fantasy begins. How once extinct magical creatures like fairies are genetically engineered and how some Earthlings begin to reject the technological future lifestyle that brought so much chaos to their world. Instead they revert back to a magical pre-Industrial following. This is all observed by Calista Soleil, the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality and Overseer of Port Sunshinescence in what is the best so far in Bella's series.

While doing her usual duties, Calista hears rumors that creatures like fairies, demons, elves, and magic users have reappeared on Earth. Conceding that it would be interesting to see such creatures, she doesn't hold the rumors in much stock. However, she comes face to face with the truth of those rumors when Marius, a refugee, hides in her private quarters after telling her about some strange happenings in a forest down on Earth in which people enter but never return and are never found. So Calista and Marius go down to Earth to investigate the trouble. Along the way, they meet several characters who would be more at home in a Fantasy novel like Triella, a young woman who sports a pair of fairy wings, and Caimana, a woman who claims that she's a sorceress.

Here is the first book where Calista's more positive character traits outweigh the negative ones. In fact, much of her earlier uncompromising, arrogant, cold, sometimes polarizing behavior can be found in many of the characters that she encounters. Marius for example displays some arrogance as their adventures continue. He makes unwise choices that puts himself and the others in danger. Triella and Caimana have some Science Vs. Spirituality debates, similar to the ones that Calista herself had with Lavender in Overture for the Overawed.

Serenity, a young Earth girl put in Calista's care during this adventure, carries some of Calista's curious, adventurous, and overly emotional behavior.

In fact, Calista often has to be more diplomatic in her leadership skills. Here she shows it by listening to her team's concerns and keeping them in line while also disseminating the latest problems from Earth locals. She has definitely matured as a leader and we have seen a shift where she is less of the protagonist who is always considered right, but the leader of an ensemble of brilliant multifaceted characters. In fact, Triella and Caimana were the best characters in this volume. It's great to see other characters shine (pun not intended) just as brightly as the Overseer of Port Sunshinescence.

What is absolutely the best part about this book is how Science Fiction takes that right turn straight into Fantasy. Magic, religion, and mythology have always been in the background of the Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality series. There are cults that worship the sun and moon. In one book, Calista has a vision of a phoenix. She is even revered and treated like a Sun Goddess. However, many of these elements were subtle and could be handwaved by scientific methods. 

Enchantment Now Enshrouds is where the line between Science and Magic is blurred implying that within a few generations, that line could disappear.

Triella is not an actual fairy. She was human but she had been genetically engineered with wings and can harness energy. That is confirmed in the text.

However, we also have Caimana, a sorceress who says that she has studied magic through books. Whether she is reading science books and channeling energy is never revealed. The point is that in the future there are still people who believe in the old, supernatural ways, and prefer to call it magic. We have two different looks at how legends and myths are created: either by man made events misinterpreted by future generations or by old ways that people were once in tune with but have forgotten about. 

The society in Enchantment Now Enshrouds is in a transitional period where science is creating a decline in progress and in a few generations, that decline will disappear. Science and technology will be rebranded as magic. Creatures once thought to be nonexistent will be created not by supernatural means but by geneticists with too much curiosity, pride, and time on their hands. Then in a few generations, they will become those creatures forgetting that they were once ever regular unengineered humans.

Also the fact that most of the setting is the woods is also important. The woods was always the dark forbidden place where the protagonists were forbidden to go in legends and fairy tales. The witch could be in her cottage listening for lost children. Dwarves and other magical guides could hinder or help travelers on their Hero's Journeys.

 The wolf could lie in wait for an unwary traveler. A circle of mushrooms could have been a ring of fairies dancing and luring a human to their realm. Don't get me started on all of the horror movie characters that hide in the woods before they strike. 

Anyway, the woods is a deliberate choice setting for the majority of Enchantment Now Enshrouds. Calista lives in a futuristic colony which gets its power by the sun. She is a woman of the future. 

In the forests on Earth, she is confronted with the past of myth and legend. It is unknown and as frightening to her as the untamed woods were to the villagers who first told oral stories warning the children to stay out of them.

Just like in those stories, Calista and her team find an untapped power source in the woods  that tests many characters' honor, virtue, and resistance against temptation. Some succeed while others fail. But it also shows that the myths, legends, fairy tales served another purpose.

 They weren't just created to build imaginary worlds or to frighten the listeners and Readers on a cold winter night. They were meant to call attention to traits that society considered admirable like valor, wisdom, empathy, dedication, and so on. Those that used them to achieve those goals are the ones worthy to be called heroes. Those that don't, well often have to wait for a postmodern revision novel for their story perspective to be told.

Enchantment Now Enshrouds combines beautifully the worlds of science fiction and fantasy. It shows that transition in a way that is hard to figure out and easy to visualize what could happen next.

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.

New Book Alert: Mazarine Dreamer by Francessca Bella; Novel Length Poem Is Long on Fantasy and Reincarnated Romance

New Book Alert: Mazarine Dreamer by Francessca Bella; Novel Length Poem Is Long on Fantasy and Reincarnated Romance 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Did I mention that reincarnated lovers and time travel romances were one of the top themes this year? After Canvas of Time by Amelie Pimont, Rosemary for Remembrance by Nikki Broadwell, Trapped in Time by Denise Daye, Eternally Artemisia by Melissa Muldoon, The Reincanationist Papers by D. Eric Maikrantz, Demons of Time: Race to the 7th Sunset by Varun Sayal, One Night in Paris by Juliette Sobanet, The Amber Crane by Malve Van Hassel, and The Love of the Tayamni Series by T.A. McLaughlin. Why not end the year right with another one?

So how does one make a frequently done theme work? One way is to do what Francessca Bella did, turn your reincarnated fantasy romance into pure poetry, literally.

What makes Bella's The Mazarine Dreamer stand out is its execution. Bella wrote the book in poetic format creating a novel length poem. It's a difficult endeavor. (Indeed, I tried to write this review in poetry form as a reaction but it didn't work very well so I used prose.) But Bella not only deserves props for trying, she deserves it for succeeding.

The plot involves Flavia Mavaret, a psychologist. Flavia interviews a monk who is either suffering from hallucinations or is possessed. She does some studying and learns that Pastello Abbey, the current monastery, has a curse on it.  There have been at least three accounts of mysterious deaths and disappearances affecting Pastello since the Renaissance (at least three that are reported.)

While investigating the abbey and its surroundings, Flavia follows a carrier pigeon to the wooden caravan home of Madame Idona, a mediatress and past life expert. Idona reveals that Flavia is the reincarnation of a woman who was caught in a love triangle in the Renaissance that ended very badly.

Idona gives Flavia the chance to go back in time to set things right. She is to wear a bracelet on her wrist and when a pigeon appears before her, she must recite the Latin words on the scroll that it carries.

Once Flavia travels back in time, she encounters Nevian Evegane, a Renaissance scientist who is trying to breed a clowder of battle cats called the calor. The Renaissance version of Flavia is engaged to Nevian but things aren't going well, mostly because of Nevian's obsession with calor breeding and his  arrogant bordering on abusive behavior. During a tense argument, Flavia goes to the nearby Briarfield estate and encounters Seron Briarfield, a charming artist and magician and the other third of the triangle.

If things weren't complicated enough in the Renaissance, Flavia can travel between past and present. In modern day, Flavia is investigating the curse on Pastello and a sinister creature called Mortis Nuntius. She also catches the attention of her colleague, Netius Eveseen, an intelligent and driven physicist with an interest in zoology and Netius' friend, Lero Monteith, an illustrator with an interest in magic. What a coincidence, Netius and Lero bear strong resemblances to Nevian and Soren respectively and before too long, it appears that the triangle echoes once again and history is cursed to repeat itself.

Bella shows tremendous aptitude for the mechanics of poetry such as rhyme and meter. She begins her work with "So now, my heart a lacked complexity/I work to decode for salvation  its perplexity." 

Since the book is written in rhyming couplet, there are times when Bella really stretches for a near rhyme like "pounders and blunders."(She also solves the riddle that if you find an unrhymable word like orange just have the characters make up a word like "apporange." It worked when Lewis Carroll did it.) Of course if you are writing a novel in poetic form, not every line is going to be great and it doesn't take away the tremendous achievement and talent in writing the book this way in the first place.

Bella was clearly inspired by the Romantic poetry narratives of the past. There is a strong sense of respect for the natural and supernatural world that is spread throughout the work. Flavia is fascinated with pure white albino animals. She herself has albinism and is often recognized for her uncommon appearance. So she relates to these physically unique creatures. Many times pale animals like foxes, birds, cats, and rabbits appear before sharing a psychic connection or to guide her.

Besides the natural world, there are strong ties to the supernatural world.

The book has plenty of magic and an awareness of motifs and themes found in fairy tales and Romantic poetry.

Idona is similar to the wise guide/Mentor figure who gives the protagonist the task and advises them on what path they need to take. 

There are curses and demons. Flavia is haunted by a demonic figure that delights in mentally torturing her and those it encounters.

 The animals are not just a natural connection to Flavia but also a magical one as they lead her to various steps on her quest. There are various motifs that can be found in such works like the Rule of Three (three magic words that Flavia has to recite to travel through time; three encounters at Pastello before Flavia investigated it). 

Color and imagery are also used to capture Romantic Fantasy. Bella's writing helps the Reader visualize the book in front of them.

One of my favorite stanzas shows the transition between past and present as her bracelet transports her.

Flavia says:

"A moving Mazarine fog and I synchronized

the sole two things in existence organized

We shared definition and became premium

to make the presiding magic medium

a true traveling point between my mod life

as Flavia Mavaret and one with past ride

set five hundred years back in the Renaissance

It promised to return me to ancient haunts

Encapsulated into that blue abyss, I experienced

feelings again. They dramatically influenced me as I infused with the color mazarine and became a softer dreamer in its scene

Life I gained inside it, so my understanding 

of it changed thickly into one for demanding

a mazarine transcendence. A blue beyond 

warded off death. In its abyss, I did abscond

Fading slowly away was that blue and mist-swirled 

Surrealism to give way to an alt-world."

Mazarine ends up functioning as a color that represents spirituality and time. It is a conduit between the worlds of past and present and allows Flavia to travel between them. The Mazarine Dreamer is like a study of Romantic fantasy and the tropes that are found inside them.

Flavia herself goes through the various steps of the Hero's Journey such as the Call to Adventure, Refusing the Call, Challenges, Transformation, Atonement, and Return.

Like many heroes before her, Flavia is not the same person that she was before. She begins as a modern woman certain about her career and her place in the world as a psychologist. Though she is curious and open minded enough to accept ideas as magic, she isn't experienced in them personally. This experience of traveling through time opens her mind to become a more understanding and accepting character, especially towards other people who remember their former lives or are  maybe carrying issues and fears that resonated into their current live. She becomes a guide to them the way Idona was for her.

There is a theme of physical vs. metaphysical throughout the Mazarine Dreamer and much of it is carried over by the two (technically four) men in Flavia's life.

In the past, Nevian and Soren firmly stand on opposite sides of the Renaissance ideal. Nevian is all about Reason and science. He is cold and methodical. When he receives the commission to create calors, that becomes his central obsession. He is arrogant in his pursuits and he is condescending and verbally abusive towards Flavia.

On the other hand, Soren stands on the opposite spectrum. He believes in magic not science and has a spiritual connection to the world around him. He is more emotional and Romantic and soothes the loneliness that Flavia feels.

Unfortunately, Soren and Nevian being pitched at opposite extremes works thematically but not plot wise. Thematically, they represent two ideals that are often at odds with which Flavia balances both extremes out, being scientific but open minded,rational in analyzing patient's concerns but emotional enough to be concerned for their welfare. 

Unfortunately, for the plot of an important love triangle which ends in tragedy, it doesn't quite work when one third of the triangle is portrayed as so much better or worse than the other. Nevian is written for the most part as irredeemable and reprehensible. His interest in science is fascinating but the shameful way that he treats Flavia makes any option of him ending up with her troublesome at best. Seron is clearly the better prospect but that takes out the conflicted possibilities that could have resulted in better characters.

Actually Bella does present a more nuanced triangle in the present between Flavia, Netius, and Lero. Like their predecessors, Netius and Lero also stand on opposite sides of the Romance vs. Reason debate but their positions are more fluid. They often overlap with their views.

While Netius is a physicist and can at times be arrogant, he has an almost poetic affection for zoology and biology, almost recognizing deeper connections in the world around him. He also has enough of an open mind that he understands Flavia's experience and doesn't condescend to her when she tells him what is going on.

Lero is an illustrator with a much more emotional and spiritual side. However, he has a medical awareness as he sketches the human heart. Interestingly enough while Soren is the better prospect for Flavia in the past, Lero somewhat falters in the present. There are times when he behaves very immaturely and crosses boundaries especially after Flavia and Netius become involved.

While Nevian and Soren have the more Renaissance view of characters reflecting one thing or another, Netius and Lero are from a more postmodern view. People in literature are more complex than they were. They are not one thing or another. Sometimes their views and personalities adapt or overlap and that's what Bella displays in the modern era and how she portrays the separate triangles both past and present.

The Mazarine Dreamer is a beautiful poetic experiment that works very well. It takes the themes of reincarnation and love existing through time and finds a new interesting way to tell it. It's not an easy read, but it is well worth it.