In an Absent Dream

I've been working my way through this series and I kind of wish I'd given this installment a miss. It doesn't seem to be essentail to any overarching narrative of the seires. it fills in the back story of a very minor character from the first novella. And I have to say, this one just didn't feel as fun or as fully formed as the others so far. The main character, Lundy, was okay but didn't have a lot of depth. Building a whole character around the premise that she's well-behaved and likes to follow rules is an inherently uphill battle. The world visits - the "goblin market," I guess - seemed a little vaguely formed. I didn't get a clear picture of the world, except for its one fundamental principle, which is that you have to get or give "fair value" for everyting you give to or get from everyone else. I honestly felt like the phrase "fair value" was repeated so many times in the story, it lost all meaning. Tantalizingly, throughout the book, the author made references to exiciting adventures Lundy has in the goblin market - but without any detail, and we never get to witness any of the adventure first-hand. The audience gets stuck watching Lundy go to (regular humanan) school, sort books and buy pie at the goblin market.

Overall, it was hard to feel like the chracter had true stakes. In the other books, the chracters fled to fantastical worlds because they truly coudln't fit in to the normal world. Lundy seemed to like her family. (Her biggest issue, as presented, was that she didn't have friends because her dad was the school principal; this seemed like a "misfit" status she was inevitably going to grow out of.) She seemed to like her slightly boring-sounding magical world, but it wasn't clear what it was really offering her that the normal world couldn't. The choice she makes at the end kind of made sense, but it felt like there wasn't really a wrong choice. Except that the punishment she received for her choice was extreme and out of left field. It made for an unearned dramatic ending to an otherwise plodding, underbaked story.

The writing was good and it was clear the author attempted to create strong characters. Really, the problem may have been length: this might have worked as a short story ,but just didn't have enough going for it to propel a whole novella.