The Stranger's Magic

May 28, 2012
The pseudonymous Frei’s third Labyrinths of Echo magical adventure (after The Stranger and The Stranger’s Woes) is unpredictable, mysterious, and full of surprises. Revenge motivates “pretty boy” Nennurex Kiexla to infiltrate the secret police and kill Sir Max, a powerfully witty investigator with the Secret Investigative Force who tracks down illegal magic and trespassing monsters from other worlds. Despite the efforts of investigators, a rider has straddled the back of Sir Shurf and used him as a vehicle to invade Sir Max’s dreams. The characters have the ability to borrow or share sleep, insinuate themselves into dreams, use thought to paint a picture, or even commit murder by exercising mind control. Readers will be entranced by the complex world, though they may frequently need to go back and reread earlier sections to make sense of later ones, and will enjoy Sir Max’s unusual methods of investigation.

July 15, 2012
Cigarette-huffing magician bad boy Max Frei, the fictional character, returns in this latest by Max Frei (The Stranger, 2009, etc.), the author. There are reasons to worry that Frei's (the author's) schtick is getting a little thin: Frei (the character) spends most of his time mugging and smirking, though he's come into some good luck by having been placed in a position of power in the Unified Kingdom, chasing around the ever-weird city of Echo "to investigate cases of illegal magic and battle trespassing monsters from other worlds." This being a work out of Russia, let's not forget the job of picking on travelers, too: "I still can't explain why a bunch of grungy gypsy women made me so furious." But "picking on" isn't quite right, not when "annihilating" is the better word: "Moments later, everything was over: an unattractive heap of assorted colorful rags lay on the sand, and I moved onward." But never mind the discomfiting politics; Frei (the character) eventually finds his stride and investigates some proper capers, including the possibility of a palace coup, an attempted murder and a bungled burglary. Frei (the author) works under some long shadows; there are moments that might have come from the pages of Douglas Adams, others that wouldn't be out of place in Alice in Wonderland. Frei (the author) relies on his by-now-trademark goofiness and a lot of witty back-and-forth to move his story along, but in the end, the plot is messy and not well-resolved--leaving room, of course, for yet another volume in the Labyrinths of Echo series. Literate, silly fun, though the reader might wish for a little more energetic storytelling and a little less japery.

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