 Reviewed by
Jeanne Johnson
Third volume in a mysterious and haunting series about a man (?) who is tossed about in time and space, never knowing who he is or why he's fated to be a perpetual voyager. His name is Facade, and he shares his body with four other entities- Wolf Face, a male wolf who has mastered human speech; Twin, a female swan with a double pair of wings; the Professor, who is pure personality without a body of his own; Naaku, a dragon (sex evidently unknown- maybe dragons don't have them); and a fifth person who has yet to appear and about whom nothing is known. Sometimes Facade's co-tenants manifest in their own bodies, sometimes they merely change part of Facade's body into their own. This allows Facade, for instance, to fly with Twin's wings or, in one unusually happy tale in the first volume, to manifest as the god Anubis to a number of ancient Egyptians by grafting Wolf Face's head onto his own human body. In the third book of the series, which is all one long story, Facade finds himself amongst a tribe of shamans, most of whom have their own totem animal whose power they can call on and whose form they can take. The chief of the tribe, Talos, draws forth Facade's own guardian animal, Wolf Face, so that the two can actually meet for the first time. The shaman tribe provides the first clue Facade has ever had as to the reason for his strange constitution. But all is not well in this new world. More and more members of the tribe are being born without totem animals, and those who change shape often cannot completely change back, like Meina who has been a fox virtually since she was born, and Talos himself who now has the eyes and incisors of his totem lion. And the region which was once inhabited by independent tribes has now become a kingdom, whose king is turning his eyes on the shamans' land. 'Eye', actually- long ago the king, Arden, lost an eye to Talos' claws. The final confrontation between Arden and Talos is a classic of twisty plotting, surprising revelations, and homoeroticism thick enough to cut with a knife. There's no overt sex to speak of but, as in Mamahara Elli's Shuyu Roukaku, that fact merely increases the intensity of the emotions. This is June at its best. Highly recommended. |