Chalk

A Rabbit hole that goes straight to Dante's Inferno

A bit of a tough review: largely because it's difficult to pin down. If you've ever read a John C. Wright novel you can see a lot of traditional fantasy stylings, as well as a tendency to go into full fantasy. Literally anything can be thrown at the reader, but by a certain point in the story, the reader doesn't even blink. Think of any version of Alice in Wonderland where things became well and truly weird... then add chainsaws, shotguns, lightsaber, and a velociraptor with miniguns. Chalk opens with Raven Mistcreek returning from catholic school to find her house disappeared into thin air, and the neighborhood dogs trying to kill her. So when a flying cuttlefish in a top hat tells her "Come with me if you want to live," it seems reasonable enough. No, I'm not making any of that up. That's how the book opens. And that's before Raven Mistcreek really jumps down the rabbit hole, because the bottom of this rabbit hole isn't Wonderland, it's Hell itself. Thankfully, there are other stops along the way. Raven fits perfectly into the strange new world of magic and horrors, except she doesn't remember why, how, or anything else about her life. She has no memories, her family is missing, and the collected monsters of HP Lovecraft are out to kill her. The Dogs of War have started working for Death, and all Hell is about to break loose. Why? Because her and her family are the key to stopping all of creation from being destroyed. Luckily for Raven, she's not alone. Along the way, she acquires some interesting friends: a kitsune with a katana, a paladin, and a golem. And, of course, Raven has her box of chalk. Anything she draws with chalk can come to life, and draw she does, everything form handguns to chainsaws to rifles, all of which play an important part in the story. Before I comment on the story, let me reassure you of one thing: to start with, the "missing family" and "hero has amnesia" tropes are both resolved over the course of the book. Each element is replaced with much higher stakes than these. It's a refreshing change, since I have seen novels stretch out both tropes to a ludicrous decree (See: 90% of the plots involving Wolverine, or X-Files with a lost sister.). The pace of this book is surprisingly, blisteringly fast. The threats are nearly omnipresent. This fantasy also has elements of a mystery, where we're given all the clues but everyone is too busy running for their lives to figure it out, like a Mickey Spillane or a John Dickson Carr. There's one new threat after another, and they stop just long enough for our heroes to figure out how to get past the next obstacle ... which usually leads to yet another running shootout, only with lightsabers. And there's one conflict that feels very much like Dante's Inferno, but if he had shotguns. If one were to properly describe this book, it starts as Alice in Wonderland with guns, and ends in a battle that Edgar Rice Burroughs or Tolkien would have been happy to have written, complete with Knights, war unicorns, lightsaber, a Kaiju battle, and a living Lovecraft horror the size of a building. Original review: https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/review-chalk-by-nr-lapoint