Review: One Bright Star to Guide Them

Book Review Time: One Bright Star to Guide Them

Get One Bright Star to Guide Them at Amazon or Castalia House.

Final Rating: 5/5 or “I’ll sleep when it’s done”

For this entry, I’m going to tackle a review of John C. Wright’s novella, One Bright Star to Guide Them. When I do reviews, I don’t just review the work, but I’m also going to tell you how I came to the work and why I’m bothering to write about it. Some of you don’t like that, so if you like, you can skip down to the review proper...


Still here? Okay! One of the hallmarks of being a nerd is liking something so much that things like food or sleep can be ignored for a while in the pursuit of nerdish things. I love books and reading and every once and a while I come across something that triggers the geek in me. I’m up late into the night, far past what’s reasonable going through “just one more chapter.” My wife, sadly, can attest to this.

One Bright Star triggered that impulse. Fortunately for my work and home life, it's short. On my Kindle it clocked in at about 55 pages, so it was an easy read one evening for me.

To talk about it I have to talk about the chain of authors I went through to find it in the first place.

When I’m not writing and thinking about nerd related subjects, I often think about politics. Never fear, gentle reader, this blog is not about that subject, so you won’t have to hear too terribly much about that subject, but it’s relevant here, because one of the blogs I read (Popehat) mentioned author Larry Correia, prompting me to check out his writings at Monster Hunter Nation. I enjoyed his political rantings (he’s not called the International Lord of Hate for nothing) and thought I’d give his Monster Hunter International series a try. If you look at his blog site, be warned: he is VERY political.

One of the things about me is that I can enjoy a writer’s perspective on things like politics or philosophy, but if they can’t write, I don’t read their books. Sounds simple, right? Well … lets just say that there are some authors who get and keep a lot of their audience out of personal loyalty and common politics rather than good writing.

I enjoyed the Monster Hunter series… it started as a sort of guilty pleasure read, but it grew on me to the point where I’m eagerly awaiting the next book. I’ll pick it up on launch. The Monster Hunter books are a modern urban fantasy series like the Dresden Files, but with far more guns. I recommend them, and will likely do a full review at some point but… go read them. Hey: there’s a bonus you really have two reviews in one at this point. Larry writes action scenes exceptionally well: I was really bummed that I didn't get to Gen Con this year, since he hosted a panel on writing them. The guy can write action.

In one of his columns, Larry talks about this author, John C. Wright and calls him one of the most eloquent, articulate, intelligent voices in genre fiction. When an author you enjoy reading talks about another writer in those terms, you take notice. Especially when the first author is a take-no-prisoners, blunt and direct writer like Larry.

So I discovered John’s writings. They are … intensely written … is the best way I can describe them. If words are paint on a canvas, John C. Wright would be big and bold and baroque. This can be a very good thing or it can be terribly bad. The term “purple prose” was coined for this style of writing when it’s done wrong.

John does it very right, but I’m going to admit that his work requires your attention. He is an intelligent writer and you can’t just scan through one of his books looking for keywords. You have to pay attention. Now that will frustrate some folks to be sure (and it has, look at some of his reviews!) but there’s a reward: he has something to say.

My God it is refreshing to read a book where the author uses a complex turn of phrase and actually has something meaningful to communicate! It’s a sort of a prize at the end of the maze.

As an author you may be familiar with with a similar writing style, I suggest Mark Helprin. As Mark is a favorite author of mine, this is high praise.

John has a website, and I’m going to warn you that this both very political and philosophical here. Be ye warned a second time.

So after looking at his works (if you’re interested in his other books, City Beyond Time is where I started), he went of the list of authors I look at immediately when they come out with something new.

And so we come to One Bright Star to Guide Them, and our review proper begins here.

One Bright Star asks the question of what happens when the children of a story like C.S. Lewis wrote about in Narnia grow up. Now if you've read that series, you know what happens to the Pevensie's, so I’ll say it asks a more general question: what happens to the characters after the story ends?

We all know how the classic fairy tail ends: and they lived happily ever-after. One Bright Star dives into that notion.

So I mentioned the 900 pound gorilla in the room: Narnia. One Bright Star is not a literal sequel to Narnia, but it is very strongly inspired by it. Wright speaks with the sort of literary voice that Lewis in the Chronicles in this novella. It is different than the voice he writes with in his other works: not as dense or challenging to read. One Bright Star would be appropriate as Young Adult Fiction, and I’d say it’s written at about that level.

Given what I think of that genre (intense distaste), you might think I am being critical, but that’s not so: I would say the defining work of the genre is Narnia, which can be read and appreciated by people of all ages. It’s the later stuff that I don’t appreciate, and One Bright Star is clearly in the earlier tradition.

To give a sort of preview of the major themes of the novella, the idea that as a grown adult, I simply don’t or can’t appreciate Young Adult Fiction is sort of the point of them: they aren't written for me.

The basic premise is that four children at a boarding school go on a magical adventure started at the bottom of the Well of Nine Worlds. A friendly school professor gives them advice, and they are aided in their travels by the King of All Cats. Now what other story does that remind you of?

They have many adventures, until they defeat the darkness, save the world, and come home.

And grow up. So all of that is in the past for them now.

The novella starts with 40 something Tommy -- excuse me, Thomas, just about to accept a promotion and move out of his small town and into London. Something isn’t right “I should be happy,” he says, but it’s just not right.

A few pages later he’s back on an adventure.

Now as a 40-something man, I immediately ask who this book is written for. Is it for children? I don’t believe so. There is some dark stuff in this adventure, darker than Narnia, and I wouldn't recommend it for younger children. I’d say it would be acceptable for an early teen, someone who’s bridging the gap between childhood and adulthood. Wright talks about this as being one novel he wishes he could give to himself to read earlier, so my expectation is that the teen audience was intended. But it also worked for old-guy me.

As I read it, I remembered the big problem that I had with Narnia. At the end of the major books, we’re told that some of the characters will never be able to return there, as they are now too old. I always thought that was terribly unfair. I was reading the books at the age of the Pevensies, so I was left with the thought: what is there for one when they've grown too old for adventures?

To put it bluntly: One Bright Star answers this question.

First Corinthians says:

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

The novella begins with this quote, and what this idea means is its central theme.

There were four primary protagonists in the earlier stories of adventures (i.e., "what has come before,") and we see what has happened to each of them as the years have gone by. It’s not pretty for all of them (much like it was not for Susan in Narnia).

I am not going to spoil the story for you any further, but I’d like to discuss two points that resonated very strongly with me.

First, I wanted to hear more about the story. There are many, many references to the adventures the children have: glimpses into the earlier world. I loved it, and wanted to read more. I would especially enjoy revisiting this world and these characters again, and hope to have the opportunity to do so.

The novella was also one of the most “gameable” ones I've read in a long time. I wanted to play a game in the dark supernatural modern world this talk about. I would place it very similar to some of Simon Green’s works about dark magic in the modern world. I’d love to see this expanded, and I’d play an RPG set in this world in a moment.

In other words, “more please!”

The second point I wanted to discuss is how, as a nerd who grew up reading Narnia and the Lord of the Rings and similar stories, this short novella touched me.

I’m a nerd in my 40’s, and I could absolutely identify with the main character. Now I haven’t been lying to all of you about my (lack of) magical adventures when I was younger, but as someone who read those books at exactly the right age, I felt like that sort of adventure was always right around the corner for me. As any young nerd, I had a crazy imagination, and I still do.

As someone who’s grown up, I get smacked on the head by that fact every now and then. Ben Folds song “Still Fighting It,” resonates with me:

Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
But everybody does
...
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it

Let’s face it: if you’re a nerd (and if you’re reading this blog, you probably are) you do a lot of things that many people tell you aren't very grown up, including play. That doesn't sit right with a lot of people, and if I’m going to be honest with you (and why shouldn't I be, it’s my blog…) it doesn't always sit right with me.

For the most part I've integrated my nerdish pastimes in with the rest of my responsible life, but every now and then there’s the mystery and longing for the simple life where I could video game, play RPGs and drink Mountain Dew until all hours of the night.

Those issues are discussed in One Bright Star, and Wright gives a very distinct answer to what it means to grow up and grow old. I would like to discuss what he says, but it would sort of be robbing you of getting to that point in the story yourself. But I will be returning to that issue eventually in a future blog.

Those are the kind of issues that One Bright Star made me ponder, and if an eBook can do that, it was definitely worth the time investment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to call a contractor about sealing my basement due to water leakage.

Final Rating: 5/5 or “I’ll sleep when it’s done”

So that’s my review. What did you think of it? Make some noise and let me know! And until next time, Make Mine 20.