With Abductors (Rain Publishing Inc, 2007, Toronto, 177 pages), Canadian author Bernadette Gabay Dyer has delivered a delightful and inventive tale to rival Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland.
Deftly, Dyer mines a rich imagination using rock-solid story-telling skills. This Toronto-based author studied art in Jamaica, her birthplace, and later became a teacher, novelist, poet, playwright and more. Her previous books include Villa Fair (short stories, 2000) and Waltzes I Have Not Forgotten (historical novel, 2004).
Although Abductors works best as a tale for teenagers, adults can enjoy it too. “It’s not easy getting old, love,” says one elderly character. “Half the time, there are things you wish you could remember, and the rest of the time, you wish you could forget the things you remember.”
How imaginative is Dyer? Who else surmises that sinister fairies and alien kidnappers are in cahoots? As another character says, “After a great deal of research, I have come to realize that UFOs and Fairy Lore are most likely one and the same phenomenon. There’s the lost time, the little men and even abductions.”
Graeme Hulis, a youthful protagonist, must rely upon his wits, good friends and a “guardian fox” named Grier to survive in a world of nasty fairies, watchful birds, spying cats, distressing disappearances and unknown realms hidden below ground.
“Nothing should be more feared than Krum’s people, who are also known as Little Men. Their deceptively harmless appearance leaves one vulnerable to their wiles. No human knows their true origins, or from whence they will next appear. They are scattered throughout the continents in diverse forms of disguise, though it is their purposeful lack of emotion, conscientious determination and single-mindedness that set them apart. Caution cannot be stressed enough when encountering Little Men.”
Graeme’s mother disappears, seized by these “little men” and plunged deep into a pond. “She was never found, though the pond was dredged,” his father says. “There was no sign of her or her abductors.”
Seeking a refuge, Graeme and his father move from England to Toronto, but unusual events persist. As Grier explains, “There’s a lot of magic between earth and heaven. It lives in the wind, the soil, the air, the water and even in the fire. We just have to know where to find it.”
Then Graeme’s father vanishes. Can the young hero unravel mysteries fast enough to avoid a similar fate?
Make no mistake. This book shows serious weaknesses too – mainly lacklustre design and careless editing, leading to inconsistent spacing, misplaced punctuation and occasional typos. Yet Abductors remains a gem of a tale.
Approval rating: 77 per cent
For more information: www.rainbooks.com
(September 17, 2007)
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Bernadette Dyer:
rich imagination.
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