Dreams and Realities?

Dreamscape by Paul Kidd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Paul Kidd is a wonderful, fresh voice in fantasy - and perhaps because all of his recent books have been self-published, they have retained that sense of originality, and have not been editted to fit into a specific niche. "Dreamscape" is no exception - it takes the reader and slowly immerses them into the ideal, peaceful world of a young girl. With a surreal elegance, it portrays the world the way she conceives it - and it appears she shares some of Kidd's interests - wargaming, cafes, swordplay etc. After you have settled in and are enjoying the easy ambience, discord is introduced - slowly, innnocently at first, just a few indications that things are not all pearls and roses. Then more discord follows, until her delightful, delicious world risks total destruction. Or worse. Commercialisation. I cannot help but feel that Kidd's concept meshes rather neatly with my ideal of the afterlife.

There are issues of course. Mainly with formatting - the margins are not justified, leaving the right margin a raggedy mess of lines. And at one point the font size increases by one or two points for several sentences. The occasional typo slips through the editor as well - but none of these detract too much from the overall feeling of the book. Indeed, the only factors that actually bugged me were that the words "deliciously" and "gorgeous" were used on almost every page for the first third of the book and that his tortoise lived in a pond. And the latter could have been entirely Steel's fault.

It will not be to everyone's tastes - the slow build led me to wonder if there would ever actually be in conflict - the essential element for ever novel, anywhere. The occasional repetition. And it seems to be a little gamer-centric - somehow people who wargame, or what-not, have more worthy souls than, say, accountants (although he did give politicians a part - the key is passion, but who's to say an accountant can't be passionate about numbers?) and there is a reasonable population of furries, but it's entirely up MY alley, and I loved it. Thank you Paul, I've now gone and acquired some more of your books for my kindle - I am so happy you are still writing, and writing well.

I bought the actual book of this on Amazon (published via LuLu) but it is now available on ebook too - although not cheap, so I would recommend you try the sample first.

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