The Diminutive Defenders of Num (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 3) by Jessica Crichton; The Final Chapter In This Legendary YA Series

 

The Diminutive Defenders of Num (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 3) by Jessica Crichton; The Final Chapter In This Legendary YA Series 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: STOP! Before you read this book, I request that you read my previous reviews for Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine and The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc, Volumes 1 and 2 of Jessica Crichton's The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil to understand the series. (While you're at it, read my review of Crichton's stand alone novel, Tipani Walker and The Nightmare Knot. While it is not set in the Guys and Glory Universe, it retains many similar themes). This review will contain MAJOR HEAVY DUTY SPOILERS for the series, so please read this review with caution.

You're back? Oh good, now on we go with Volume 3: The Diminutive Defenders of Num.

Now we come to the potential end of this bold, brilliant, amusing, gripping, suspenseful, involving, surprising, and endlessly entertaining YA Dystopian Science Fiction series by Jessica Crichton. She clearly put a lot of thought into how to bring the adventures of wonder twins Trevor and Tabitha Tate AKA Guts and Glory respectively to a satisfying and memorable conclusion and she did.

To briefly recount the previous volumes. In Volume 1, Trevor and Tabitha’s mother was kidnapped. The twins and their older sister, Emily are recruited by Dr. Fixit who tells them that she was taken to the land of Nil. When they arrive in Nil, they discover that it's a dystopia in which gangs of Kids between 7 and 12 are formed to battle against gangs of Teens. Adults are nowhere to be found. Emily, later called Spirit, is taken by the Teens and eventually joins them. The twins in the meantime join the Kids, obtain the names Guys and Glory, and make new friends like Books, Turtle, Snot, Roach, Blaze, and Papercut. They also vie with the Kid's leader, Fist, who later is revealed to be their missing older brother. They learn that Dr. Fixit has villainous intentions for sending them to Nil. Then they encourage the Kids to team up with the Teens to fight the real enemy. 

After Fixit is temporarily defeated in the first book, the second volume features the Kids traveling to the nearby land of Noc where they encounter Fixit's formidable ex, Marie. She controls a group of elderly people to become zombies that obey her bidding. She uses her manipulative abilities to turn many of the Kids including Guts into zombies as well leaving Glory alone to fight against them. Meanwhile Guys and Glory explore the meanings behind their new names and what they can do to earn them. They discover that the Zombies are the Kid's grandparents and once they break them from Marie's hold, they receive new allies in the struggle against the tyrannical Dr. Fixit.

Now in Volume Three, The Kids and Teens are united so they decide to finally cut Dr. Fixit off at the source. They will enter his fortress in the Land of Num and defeat him once and for all. Along the way, they find brain washed Adults, and robots that obey Fixit without question. Along the way, the Kids rediscover missing family members and learn some interesting truths that reshape their worlds. Guts, Glory, and their siblings also learn the reasons for their existence and their real purpose for coming to Nil in the first place.

Crichton is a consummate YA author because she doesn't write for a young audience. She doesn't dumb down her writing style, hide traumatic and serious topics from her readership, and doesn't talk down to her Readers. She trusts that her Readers will understand her prose without sugarcoating or making it too juvenile.

One of the ways that she accomplishes this in this volume is through narration. Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine is told through Guts' point of view and The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc was told by Glory. They were simple limited first person narratives and we got to exhibit the plot through one pair of eyes and voice each. With The Diminutive Defenders of Num, Crichton throws that out the window by giving multiple first person points of view. 

Instead of one specific narrator, this book has ten: Guts, Glory, Spirit, Fist, Snot, Papercut, Books, Roach, Turtle, and Blaze. Instead of capturing one voice, she captures all of them and makes them as diverse as possible. 

This is no doubt an insurmountable task that I do not envy Crichton for. However, it shows her immense trust that her young Readers will be able to follow such a narrative process without getting confused.

 It helps that she puts a name identifier at the beginning of each section to point out who is speaking and each chapter has a map which follows the path that our heroes take. But the variety of many voices and the multi layers of a complex narration cannot be understated. 

The complex narration helps to develop the characters and gives them opportunities to stand out. Guts and Glory have some great moments particularly after they are separated and take different roles in fighting against Fixit. Guts is thrown into Fixit's inner sanctum and finds out some traumatic secrets about their foe. Glory also has her heroic moments especially when she learns that her abilities have increased exponentially.

Other characters get to shine on their own showing courage, empathy, intelligence, defiance, and individuality. While they are all terrific, the two biggest stand outs in the ensemble are Guts and Glory's older siblings, Fist and Spirit showing that great characterization is a Tate Family trait.

Fist has been mostly the dominant dictatorial leader turned traitor turned antihero in the previous volumes. Now, he gets more depth as he bonds with Blaze, one of the younger kids and treats her like a kid sister. He also faces his own abandonment issues knowing that his mother and siblings left him behind when they fled Nil and traveled to Earth and ruminates the difficulties of being a member of the Tate Family of heroes and what it means to be one himself. 

Meanwhile Spirit has deals with her own insecurities about what role she should play in the resistance and acknowledges her complicated relationship with her family, particularly her mother. She also has to discover and accept her own inner power when danger approaches.

One of the more unique and humorous touches to this series is Crichton's use of dialogue. The Kids and Teens speak in a language that uses a strange composite of pidgin English and slang. For example Blaze at one point describes travel by boat as “Bein’ onna boat makes ya real tough. The wind’s blowin’ on yer face, but ya can just stand there an’ tell it ta shut it, cuz ya ain't goin’ nowhere anyhow.” 

It takes awhile to get used to but it definitely gives the impression of gangs of young people whose education has been limited, have to act and talk tough to survive, and learn to communicate by their own merits. 

The more hilarious aspect is the Numspeak language spoken by the Adults. It consists entirely of business communication jargon and cliches. For example “bottom line” is someone's name, “cutting edge” is now or today, and “level the playing field” is discussion or communication. 

As someone who has to review a lot of Self-Help, Personal Development, and Business books where these phrases occur so frequently that I inwardly roll my eyes when I see them, the concept of building a whole language around words like “think outside the box,” “synergy,” “zero sim game,” and “paradigm shift” personally amuses me. I also questioned and felt my current age when I realized that I understood the Adultspeak upon first reading it better and more clearly than I did the Kidspeak.

A slight and questionable flaw with this book is the muted presence of events and characters from the previous book, The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc. The Grandparents are introduced but don't play a huge part of this volume with the exception of The Tate’s grandmother. There is a lot about brainwashing and manipulation which is similar to Marie’s hold on the Zombies, but there is no direct link to that process. 

Most importantly, it would have been interesting to see Marie play a part in this volume. The idea of her  and Fixit, lovers turned exes vying with each other or working together for control of the people, is fiendishly delightful. The three books would have tied together better instead of giving the overall impression of jumping from Nil to Num without stopping at Noc along the way.

However this is a small flaw in a book that is filled with climactic moments that bring the series to an overall successful conclusion. In YA literature, it should become legendary. 

The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 2) by Jessica Crichton; Sequel to Dr. Fixit is Glorious

 The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 2) by Jessica Crichton; Sequel to Dr. Fixit is Glorious 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: As this review contains spoilers, please read my review of the previous volume, Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine . 

Even though Dr. Fixit Malicious Machine, the first book in Jessica Crichton’s The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil series stars twins Trevor and Tabitha Tate AKA Guts and Glory respectively, Trevor is the main protagonist who tells the story and goes through the most changes. The second volume, Counterfeit Zombies of Noc evens the score by giving the spotlight to Tabitha and spinning the series into a deeper more cerebral direction.

When last we left our heroes, they were transported to a parallel universe called Nil by the enigmatic Dr. Fixit and were caught up in a gang war between Kids and Teens. They found their mother but lost their older sister after she was recruited to join the Teens. Their mother revealed the family's connection to this strange place and the truth behind this youthful war engineered by Dr. Fixit who is not what he seemed.

In this volume, the Tate twins and their new companions have to travel to the land of Noc to find out information from Marie, a former scientist who was a part of Fixit's past. Along the way they encounter zombies and other creepy creatures. Meanwhile, Tabitha is questioning her own self worth and the meaning to her name, Glory. Her reflection and intellect may end up being her only allies as her party dwindles and more Kids are abducted and brainwashed into becoming zombies.

Counterfeit Zombies of Noc is good the way other good second volumes of most series are. It raises the stakes, makes things darker, and plot and world building give way to deep characterization. 

The previous volume was dark enough in creating a parallel world where gangs of children fight gangs of teenagers and where teenagers are revealed to be mind controlled puppets who follow Fixit’s will. This volume increases that sense of abandonment and manipulation of other people's free will.

When the Twins and their friends first encounter the zombies, there is a bit of dark comedy as they stop pursuing the kids and then just as quickly wonder in befuddled confusion over why they are chasing them. This first impression makes the Reader think that it is going to be a parody of zombie movies, books, and shows. Maybe this volume might even be funny? But this might give the Reader and characters a false sense of security.

The Tates and their friends follow the zombies to their headquarters and they learn the circumstances of their brainwashing. Unfortunately knowing it and fighting against it are two different things. The zombies return to their programming and come after the kids. Worse in an almost Invasion of the Body Snatchers manner, most of the kids are brainwashed as well. 

In one chilling chapter, Trevor, Guts, is converted. It's eerie to see this once sweet brave kid who would have died to protect his sister now coldly stalking that same sister and treating her like an enemy that he must destroy.

After reading about the full effect of the zombie’s manipulation, it puts their introduction in a more disturbing light. Rather being a humorous random shout out to zombie media, it instead takes on darker implications. The hold on the zombies was temporarily broken to gain the kid's trust and lure them to their lair. A final reveal over who the zombies really are makes the hold on them even more sadistic and cruel. It's a deliberate ploy for the main villain to tighten one final screw of humiliation into these young people. 

Besides the darker plot, Crichton gives her characters depth, most notably Tabitha. While Trevor became Guts, leading by courage and valor, Tabitha is uncertain. She was once an intellectual, the brain to her brother's brawn. Now she is stuck with a name, Glory, that she doesn't understand.

In this world, everyone's names are either given by themselves or someone else who recognizes something unique about them. They could reflect their appearance like “Shark” (who has sharp teeth), convey their interest (“Books” the resident researcher and genius), or personality traits (the aforementioned “Guts.”)

This leaves Glory confused. Glory is such a loaded term one that doesn't seem helpful in battle so why is she one of the presumed heroes of legend? Asking others’ opinions doesn't help because they suggest “pretty,” “spirited,” and other adjectives that Tabitha does not feel that she is. 

Tabitha is crippled with self-doubt and anxiety that impairs her own defenses and abilities. In a strange Fantasy Science Fiction novel, this is a very realistic portrayal of someone with Anxiety. Fears and insecurity can overcome someone's life even if they aren't a hero destined to save a dystopia parallel universe. That person often downplays their achievements and talents as their questions and fears take over their lives. This is what happens to Tabitha. She rejects the name Glory for a time and considers herself a load to the group, something that their enemies gleefully use as a means to taunt and break her.

It is when Tabitha has to fight the zombies alone that she recognizes the power that was dormant and was waiting to be released. She recognizes that just as any group of fighters need Guts, they also need Glory, a light, a purpose, and a reason to keep fighting. In a climactic chapter, Glory truly accepts her name and her place in this world.

Crichton knew how to draw Readers into her world before and now knows how to keep them there. There are definite hooks for a sequel so let's see if she knows the best way to take her Readers out of that world.

Tipani Walker and The Nightmare Knot by Jessica Crichton; A Dream Come True for Fantasy YA Lovers

 

Tipani Walker and The Nightmare Knot by Jessica Crichton; A Dream Come True for Fantasy YA Lovers  

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Now, we come to the second Jessica Crichton novel, Tipani Walker and the Nightmare Knot. If possible, it is actually better than Dr. Fixit’s Malicious Machine, particularly in terms of setting. character, most notably with its protagonist, Tipani Walker, and themes about the difference between living in fantasy or accepting reality. 

12 year old Tipani Walker has a difficult home life. Her father is in a coma. Her mother falls into a drug addiction which is provided by a man that Tipani calls The Spoon Man. She is frequently bullied and made the victim of a cruel prank at her school Science Fair. She stops inside an antique store and meets its eccentric owner, Piper, who gets her interest by appealing to her talents of making complex knots. After experiencing vivid dreams and some strange encounters with mysterious creatures, Piper reveals that Tipani is a Weaver able to travel through Time and Space into what Piper calls the Day Knot (memories) and the Night Knot (dreams). As a Weaver, her job is to protect people’s dreams. During her dream travels, Tipani encounters various characters both friendly and unfriendly, most notably Cassie, a girl who may or may not be part of a dream or a real person, may be in a lot of trouble, and might need Tipani’s help. 

This book is a veritable feast for the imagination. While Dr. Fixit’s Malicious Machine subverts Children’s Book expectations by giving us a very grim dark parallel universe, Crichton puts us right into those expectations of a magical fantasy world and weaves an excellent challenging story around it. I am someone who is fascinated by dreams, dream psychology, dream interpretation, and astral travel so this book definitely appeals to those interests. 

The Dream Worlds that Tipani visits alternates between whimsical and terrifying, beautiful and horrible, fantasy and horror. They’re mutable and constantly change landscapes, characters, and situations depending on what either she or the Dreamer is going through. The longer Tipani stays in a dream, the scarier and weirder it becomes. This is symptomatic of when a Dreamer enters different levels of REM sleep, they have less control over their dreams and their subconscious thoughts and fears manifest themselves. 

There are many chapters that show this. In one trip, Tipani and her guide, a doll named Chicken, encounter the Spoon Man who is transformed into a monster. He is terrifying by playing into Tipani’s fears and insecurities about abandonment and loneliness. Then upon escaping, Tipani and Chicken meet Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, the characters from the eponymous poem by Eugene Field. The poetic trio are charming, kind, and helpful. Their wooden shoe boat sailing among the stars is the stuff of childhood nostalgia while the Spoon Man is the stuff of childhood fears. Exploring the dreams is a trip into Tipani’s mind and discovering what comforts and frightens her, what she hopes for and what she wants to run away from. This book is a fascinating psychological study wrapped inside an engaging YA novel. 

Crichton’s characters are as rich as the setting. There is the kind and helpful Piper who is a wise teacher and a potential father figure. Chicken gives plenty of assistance with a touch of sardonic humor. Cassie is in a quandary of her own, forced into playing a role in which she is unhappy to play and only able to truly be herself within her own mind and through her friendship with Tipani. The Spoon Man is a monster who knows what those around him fear and worry about and doesn’t mind using it against them. 

Tipani by far is the most intriguing character and is a brilliant protagonist. Since she is 12 years old, she is certainly an angst filled adolescent who at times cops a bad attitude but with her difficult home life, it’s easy to understand why. After all, if you are facing some of the most difficult years of your life, your father is ill, mother stopped caring, and you are surrounded by classmates who want to fight you if they so much as look at your direction, you would probably not be in the best of moods either. 

Tipani is also a very intelligent and persistent girl. Once she is introduced to the concept of being a Weaver, she is curious and willing to participate. She recognizes the responsibilities that she has in helping people through their dreams and fighting their inner fears. In fact, when she befriends Cassie through her dreams, she wants to find her in the real world to see if she needs help in her waking life as she does in her dreams. 

Tipani's intelligence is already realized even before she becomes a Weaver. Her interests lie in creating complex knots like the Not Knot (unable to be untied except by the one who tied it) and learning to undo other knots like the Rapunzel Knot (long and wrapped in braids). This gives her the ability to analyze and recognize patterns, a talent that is helpful when she recognizes patterns within the dreams. This knowledge comes in handy when she has to stand up to the monsters that torture Cassie and herself. 

For all of its monsters, fears, magic, and whimsy, Tipani Walker and the Nightmare Knot is a very powerful story with some very strong things to say about the nature of dreams and reality. Sometimes our lives are terrible and we want to live inside our dreams. There we live the way we want and if things don’t work out, we can always wake up. But it’s not enough to live inside of dreams and memories. Tipani realizes that she has to take action to find and rescue Cassie, to encourage her to live her truth, and for herself to fight her own battles. Once dreaming is over, it’s time to start doing. 

With a memorable setting, commendable characters, and brilliant themes, Tipani Walker and the Nightmare Knot is a definite dream of a YA novel. 

Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil by Jessica Crichton; Crichton’s Science Fiction Children’s Book Has Plenty of Guts and Glory

 Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil by Jessica Crichton; Crichton’s Science Fiction Children’s Book Has Plenty of Guts and Glory 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: One of the things that I love about working on this blog is becoming acquainted with new, to me anyway, authors by reading multiple books written by them. It is a great journey to discover their entire body of work to see their imaginative literary worlds, to recognize tropes and themes that carry over from book to book, and associate them with a specific genre or style. My latest literary acquaintance is Children’s and YA author, Jessica Crichton.

Crichton’s book, Dr. Fixit’s Malicious Machine: The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil is a brilliant Dystopian/Parallel Universe Science Fiction which gives Readers a fantastic setting, interesting characters that inhabit it, and some very powerful themes about family and what it actually means to grow up. 

Twins, Trevor and Tabitha Tate AKA Guts and Glory respectively find their scientist mother’s lab ransacked and learn that she has been abducted by a weird tentacled creature. They are invited by a mysterious person, Dr. Fixit, who says that their mother is in his world of Nil and they have to be put through a series of tests to find her and prove themselves worthy. The twins and their older sister, Emily, follow a portal to Nil which is revealed to be a dismal place overrun by giant bugs and juvenile gangs. Emily is kidnapped by the Teens, one of the gangs, and is held captive in their fortress Igh Schoo. The twins are found by a local kid named Books who takes the duo straight to the DarkCrows, a gang of kids under 12 who are sworn enemies of the Teens. The Crows think that Trevor and Tabitha resemble Guts and Glory, two legendary figures who have sworn to return to help their people. The Tate Twins find themselves in the middle of a gang war and a world where things aren’t always what they seem.

Crichton excels at subverting expectations and creating a Children’s Novel that isn’t afraid to get dark when it needs to. Many Children’s books series don’t start out completely dark. They introduce Readers to the new world by making it a fun place rich with details that makes one want to visit, saving the major conflicts for subsequent books. Crichton’’s book is different. It starts dark and looks to stay that way. 

For example Nil is a world with few adults, but it is not exactly Peter Pan’s NeverLand. It’s more like a nation wide version of Lord of the Flies. What we see of Nil is a dismal place with destroyed buildings, rampant lawlessness, complete chaos and destruction, and young people running around with no structure or understanding.

With no rules, no structures, gangs of children and teenagers are free to do whatever they want including hurting, abusing, or killing. After all, empathy and understanding are traits that are often taught by example and learning. Without those traits trained into them during their toddler years, they resort to selfish basest instincts. This is what is on display. 

These are children and teenagers who only live for themselves and have only the faintest idea of what deeper emotions like love really are. Family still exists because there are siblings but once a sibling becomes a Teen, that link is destroyed. Friendships are earned and just as easily broken within the gangs. The stress of this world even temporarily breaks Tabitha and Trevor apart. Nil is a nightmare world that many Readers probably would not want to visit unless they were really brave or really foolhardy.

Crichton also has fun playing with various tropes that are common in Children’s Literature by giving us reasons why they exist. As previously mentioned, there is a prophecy regarding Guts and Glory but we learn that the prophecy was made in a surprisingly mundane way. It is not an ancient myth passed down from a loving deity so much as a record accidentally left behind when the writer had to leave in a big hurry. The implication seems to be that these kids were so desperate for a hero or something beyond themselves that they latched onto anything that they could find that encouraged them to look forward to a better day. 

There are some fun and interesting bits that add to Crichton’s excellent writing style. Names are particularly fun. Of course there are Tabitha and Trevor, the aforementioned Guts and Glory. There are also characters that are rich with names like Fist, Shark, Books, Roach, Turtle, and Gadget. These names give you some idea of the characters’ personalities and interests. Of course that the names are chosen not by parents but by other kids adds to the effect. Like in another life, these names could have been used as insults or means of bullying but now they are the only ways that they can identify themselves.

Some names are a bit on the nose. Nil means nothing and that gives some idea of what this world is really like. The biggest laugh is the Teen’s hideout, Igh Schoo  and how long it takes Trevor to figure out what it means. It’s obvious and clever in its own way. 

Above all this is a strong book about love and loyalty. The gang members feign loyalty but are willing to turn on each other at a moment’s notice. Some characters trust others too readily only to find betrayal. In one heartbreaking moment, the Tate Siblings’ bond with other family members are called into question, creating hurt, pain, and ties that may end up being forever broken. However, Tabitha and Trevor’s familial bond is strengthened by this adventure showing that they do have the courage, love, leadership, and perseverance to become the Guts and Glory of legends. 

It takes a lot of Guts to write a book with familiar tropes and do something unique with them. Crichton has them and the results are very Glorious.