SFINCS Review: Leafdust and Deadwood

 

“The Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS, pronounced “sphinx”) is a yearly competition to recognize, honor, and celebrate the talent and creativity present in the indie community. We are a sister competition to both SPFBO and SPSFC, and we highlight greatness in the novella format in all areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.).” – From the official SFINCS website.

Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole. No finalists will be announced until Team Bookend Elves has read all of our books!

 

REVIEW

Leafdust and Deadwood is a cozy fantasy a little in the same vein as Peter S. Beagle, K. E. Andrews’s Hills of Heather and Bone, or Emily Tesh’s Silver in the Wood. With a heavy emphasis on natural descriptions of the landscape and flora, LaD‘s strength lies in its whimsy and charm, as well as its ability to transport you to what feels like a very precise place and time. While cozy can sometimes leave me cold (that very famous cozy fantasy left me less than cold), I very much appreciate the above three authors, and am happy to add Justin Greer to my list of cozy authors I’ve been impressed by. I think what makes the difference here is the thread of darkness just beneath the surface, the sense of presences unseen and a perhaps more wizened and anti-corporate quality to the prose and structure.

Those who’ve been following my SFINCS reviews will likely be tired of this refrain, but LaD has a fairly simple plot and limited cast. The story follows an older gardener named Derry and his beloved old dog, Barrow (not that it’s especially relevant to the quality of the book, but rarely have I met such a well-paired couple of names as Derry and Barrow!).  While pottering around the woods one day, the pair come upon some unusual, invasive, and possibly anthropophageous tendrils. The majority of the novella focuses on Derry’s attempt to rid the forest of the somewhat-otherworldly menace in time for Harvest Night–a local festival one of his few friends has urged him to attend. That’s about it in terms of the plot, but so much of what works about LaD, and what the author seems most interested in, is crafting a dense atmosphere and a sense of place and character.

While some readers may find Derry a challenge to relate to emotionally due to Greer’s writing style (he tends to favour filtering over a tight POV), the choices Greer makes in terms of how we connect with Derry are in keeping with the pastoral feel of the work, and what feel like more literary or classical fantasy antecedents. It’s a mistake, I think, to interpret more distant POVs as evidence of shallow characterization. Often POV distance has more to communicate about pace, atmosphere, and mode than it does about the quality of the characterization. Here, the style lends the work a streak of the fabulous that’s a little reminiscent of Lord Dunsany in The King of Elfland’s Daughter, while simultaneously being very much its own thing. Derry and Barrow leap off the page in part because of their archetypal quality, and yet (or perhaps because of) this archetypalness, their personalities feel fully-formed and fun to follow. Derry is a bit of a loner and a curmudgeon, but he’s good at what he does and is ultimately a good person, while Barrow is as loyal and loveable as you’d expect.

Much of the actual writing in LaD is comprised of descriptions of the plantlife Derry and Barrow encounter, meaning the story will no doubt be a hard sell for many readers. Although the danger of the tendrils has an almost Lovecraftian tension and mystery to it (could LaD be that illusive, cozy horror that people have been chatting about?), overall LaD is a tremendously quiet story. Most likely to appeal to readers who enjoy getting lost in the woods and who may also have a side interest in botany, LaD promises to reward those who approach it without expectations and who enjoy a story uninterested in hitting pre-fab plot beats.

As has been true for all the semi-finalists, I have few (and minor) criticisms of LaD. Although the prose was some of the most lovely (and some of my most favourite) from the competition so far, there were places where it could use some tightening and where one or two typos/small grammatical issues slipped in. While I loved my travels across the landscape with Derry and Barrow, I did feel that a little judicious pruning would have helped the roses stand out a bit better here and there. The ending was also quite abrupt, with a bit of a sudden tonal shift between the passage detailing Derry and Barrow’s final, spooky conflict with the tendrils and the story’s conclusion. Although I’m not sure it’s a particularly valid criticism of this story (specifically because its use of the fantastic seemed intentionally light), LaD was in keeping with much of the cozy fantasy that I’ve read in that the story seemed as though it could have happily been told in a non-fantasy setting and been more or less the same.

Leafdust and Deadwood was, for me, a strong contender for a SFINCS finalist, with a firm sense of what it wanted to be and do as a story. That confidence in style and intent is something it takes most writers years to hone and has ensured that I’ll be watching Greer’s career with a close eye. I’d recommend LaD to fans of the aforementioned authors, as well as cozy fantasy fans and anyone with a love of pastoral fiction and nature more broadly.

 

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