A Delightfully Dark Fever Dream of a Story
Quick Review
I love some conniving court politics, epic, magical quests, or massive, world redefining battles as much as any good fantasy fan. But fantasy is a massive genre with many permutations and avenues ripe for exploration, with some paths less well traveled than others. One such path is the modern fairy tale; the atmospheric story that goes small rather large. The stories that focuses on the mystery and inherent unsettling aspect of a magical world, relishing in the unknowable and the weird. A tale that is far less concerned with how a world works and far more with how it makes you feel. Isaac Anderson’s The Garden Maze is such a book.
This engrossing novella drops you into a world practically seeps with mystery and danger without the barest hint of an explanation or preparation. You are almost immediately thrown into a strange contest alongside a Knight and his Squire which proves to be the sort of nightmarish fever dream one might expect to find in a book by the pre-Disneyfied Brother’s Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson. And while one might compare this book to something like Susannah Clarke’s Piranesi or Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, I found myself being reminded more so of movies by Guillermo del Toro or Tim Burton. If that sort of charming yet dark and slightly unsettling fantasy tickles your fancy, you have to check out The Garden Maze!
Full Review
Isaac Anderson’s The Garden Maze is one of those books that I didn’t know that I wanted to read. In a veritable sea of modern fantasy that is focused on armies and mages and politics and world-ending plots, Anderson’s book feels like that step off the beaten path that reminds you of just how large the sandbox of fantasy is. In a genre that is essentially limitless, we have a certain proclivity towards establishing our own barriers, either as readers or writers. We follow established genre tropes and trends, write what’s been proven and time-tested to work. We build on top of the most recent layer of fiction laid down by our immediate predecessors.
But Anderson went deeper than that. His fantasy hearkens back to a time when magic was unknown and unsettling, something that was not explained because it could not be explained. I said in my quick review that The Garden Maze reminds me of Clarke and Beagle, but it also reminds me of another author; Neil Gaiman. Despite recent controversies, I think it’s fair to say that part of Gaiman’s mega success as a writer was because his ability to modernize the format of fairy tales. To cultivate a feeling in the reader of whimsy and apprehension in equal measure and to infuse his stories with the sense of wonder that modern fantasy so often fails to.
Anderson success comes in this same vein. His novella is one that pulls you into its world and lets you be fully immersed without needing to understand the rules or the players or the history or even the true stakes. The surreal atmosphere and tone carry the story, and do it exceedingly well, in my opinion. Admittedly, for some readers, this might be a turn off. Readers who simply cannot abide a soft style of writing, one without explicit rules, that isn’t interested in exploring every nook and cranny of the world or answer every question it poses, might struggle a bit.
But for me, this style of fantasy scratches a very special itch. My one complaint about this book was the length; I wish it was longer! I wanted it to stay in this world, to dive deeper, and continue to explore its twists and turns outside the Maze. But if your only complaint about a book is that you wanted more of it, I would say you have a pretty strong story. So if you’re the kind of reader who enjoys your fantasy on the softer side, with the sort of mysterious charm that will pull you in yet a dark edge that will keep you glued to your seat, you should consider making The Garden Maze your next read!
