"Dreams of Gods & Monsters" by Laini Taylor

“My wife likes to say that the mind is a palace with room for many guests. Perhaps the butler takes care to install the delegates of Science in a different wing from the emissaries of Faith, lest they take up arguing in the passages.” –Dr. Anuj Chaudhary

This is my favorite paragraph in the entire novel. It’s such an intelligent way for the author to convey that a fictional character – both a renowned scientist and a man of faith – can believe openly the construct of evolutionary history and Creationism. I just love it. So great.

Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Apr. 8, 2014) by Laini Taylor.

POSSIBLE SPOILER (that one would likely guess at, anyway): Karou and Akiva have allied their once-enemy armies with each other, however tenuously. The revenant chimaera and seraphim, the “beasts” and the “angels,” struggle against their instinct to slaughter the other and band together. But band together they must in order to have any chance of defeating Jael, captain of the seraphic Dominion army, the Empire’s high-bred, elite army. The ranks of illegitimate Misbegotten, of which Akiva and Liraz are a part of, have severely dwindled. The Second Legion, or common army, is the largest army, on middle ground, but their allegiance is unclear. And defeating Jael’s army is crucial to the populations of two worlds: Eretz, where the seraphim and chimaera all hail from, and Earth, where, well, humans do.

            If the comingling of their armies works, then perhaps Akiva and Karou can be together in love. But with all that goes on around them and the directions they feel pulled in, fate may keep them apart. Something else is also at play. Akiva has felt the awareness of something other, something hostile. But what is it?

            Eliza Jones is a newcomer to the story. She is a research fellow in evolutionary biology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She studies butterflies, has a past she doesn’t like to dwell on and may be prophetic. What might any of that have to do with Akiva, Karou and company? (Keep an eye on Ziri, too.)

            There has been no escaping violence in Taylor’s YA trilogy, but there is less violence in this novel than the previous two. Probably because Karou and Akiva spend more time longing for love, peace between races and a home. Possibly a shared one. Taylor’s fantasy novel is spellbinding, not just because of the source material, but of her creative skill in writing. So often her words are poetic -- not “lunatic poetry,” as Zuzana mentions (love her humor), but poetic prose. For example, “Skin as black as a raven’s wing at the umbra of eclipse, and her hair was featherine, the soft rose of sunrise, and falling in pale shoals about her dark shoulders.” Practically lyric, no?

            Still, the book isn’t all intensely poetic, but light and darkness, victory and defeat, secrecy, enmity, togetherness, love. Resurrections begot and lives lost, thuribles filled and evanescence. From bodies whole to ashes in the wind. The plot is multilayered and strong, the writing meticulous and lengthy (over 600 pages long). Taylor’s story is a vale of terrific storytelling, gorgeously edgy and intense. Highly recommend!