Check out the corresponding Goodreads post here!
I was pretty tame in my analysis over there; but I had a lot more (admittedly salty and spoiler-laden) thoughts–so I figured, what better use than to commission them for my blog?
Obligatory disclaimer: these are my opinions. This is in no way a commentary on anything other than the author’s ability to write; and nobody’s a bad person for liking this book more than I did.
if you don’t like salty reviews, you don’t want spoilers, or if you just really liked this book, then you should probably turn back now.
The internet gives me too much power. Now I can sit here and ramble on about all the petty and magnificent slights I felt this book committed against me.
Overall, Impossible Creatures is a pretty average middle-grade novel. It does what it needs to do—delivers a blueprint-mapped, paint-by-numbers adventure for our elementary-aged MCs. Stuff happens, and I was just invested enough to want to know how it all played out.
Is Rundell the next Tolkien? Hell no. And let’s be honest here, none of us probably are. To be like Tolkien would mean you need a sweeping scale of an adventure, prose that paints a picture so lush you want to live in that world, and relatable, vulnerable characters that we can’t help but fall in love with.
Is Rundell the next Rowling? (I mean, depending on what you think of her, that could be an insult.) But writing-wise…I wasn’t necessarily impressed by the Swiss cheese plot or rudimentary writing of Harry Potter—so I guess I’m not the best one to be judging that metric.
Rundell fits in with the average crop of middle grade writers. I’ve read some impressive children’s lit since diving back into the genre; but this wasn’t really it. The MCs had enough characterization to be likable, but the side characters received little personality. The villain was a joke—and the character deaths were handled all too blithely, tossed in like the unexpectedly sour bursts of a bad tomato in your salad.
The hype was honestly the worst part of this book. I don’t understand why so many critics and major authors were touting this as they were. I mean, they’re allowed to have their opinions—but this isn’t an extraordinary story with across-the-board appeal and everlasting potential.
It felt a hell of a lot like a story that was trying to be that way. It read like something an adult wrote for other adults who “want” to read children’s books, but don’t actually want to read children’s books.
I can see how adults would look at this and think it’s a beloved children’s classic; but only in the sense that the author was piecing together impressions and imitations from others in order to fabricate her own.
Nobody knows they’re creating a classic when they write one, and nobody sets out to be the most lauded author of all time. They just write what’s in their heart, then put it out into the world.
* * *
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty, shall we?
CHARACTERS
Sometimes you get the mental image of an author poking at a kid with a stick like “What’s this funky lil creature here?”
Impossible Creatures reads like Rundell doesn’t remember much what it was like to be a child. Apparently, she thinks they like boogers, have the attention span of a gnat, and don’t possess feelings.
Lemme be the one to tell you, if you haven’t heard it already: most people don’t like gross content. There are the random children and immature adults who think gross-out jokes constitute a sense of humor; but most of us prefer a bit less nausea in our social interactions.
Secondly, the epidemic of shorter attention spans is an emerging phenomenon—and it isn’t just a children’s problem. The dominance of social media has brought upon us an oversaturation of quick-hit, high-reaction content, which has eroded at the focus of children and adults alike.
Why do you think so many popular fantasy novels are the same regurgitated tropes told with surface-level details at a breakneck speed? Because audiences can’t hold their attention on long-form, intricate storytelling anymore.
Children probably couldn’t swallow Lord of the Rings in one sitting, no—but they could absolutely pay attention to a plot that isn’t just one Indiana-Jones-esque sequence after another.
Lastly, on the topic of feelings—I don’t know if Rundell just didn’t know how she was going to handle the characters’ grief, or if she thought kids would be bored by emotions. But as others have pointed out, there are a few instances of character death that are quickly dealt with or glossed over entirely.
(Beginning of the spoilers; you’ve been warned.)
In the beginning of the book, one of our MCs, Mal, is attacked by a killer, who manages to murder her great-aunt in the process. Mal doesn’t seem to be affected by that death. In the moment of trying to escape the killer, I understand the adrenaline must’ve been kicking in, and she wouldn’t have broken down just yet. But the feelings don’t even sink in later. Once things calm down, Mal doesn’t cry over her aunt’s death, nor ever really mention it again. And we’re talking about the woman who raised her here.
The kids end up on a ship commanded by the broody captain Nighthand. Shortly into their journey, the group gets attacked by a disgruntled kraken, who eats Nighthand’s crewmate Warren. Nobody seems to think this worthy of a discussion beyond a mention that Nighthand doesn’t like to show emotion.
I’m a fully-grown adult, and that concept would’ve given me nightmares! But these characters act like it’s just another happening in the Archipelago—which it’s not. The kraken only surfaced thanks to the issues with the Glimourie, the magic layering over the world.
The only time any of the characters appear upset is when Rundell breaks a cardinal rule by killing off a beloved pet.
First off, it’s an awkwardly obvious example of fridging.
Fridging is the trope when you harm or kill a character to force another character to develop. It’s worst when the character had no point in existing in the first place—though, I can at least say here, the character in question was a delightful addition to the cast.
So Mal discovers she’s this being called the Immortal. Think the Avatar from the TV series—a reincarnating protector of the earth. In Mal’s case, the Immortal possess all the memories of everyone who’s ever existed; and they’re responsible for tending to the tree at the heart of the Archipelago, from which the world’s magic, Glimourie, spawns.
Lately, the magic has been fading, and the people of the islands are concerned the tree is in danger. The problem is, the tree is guarded by a maze that only the Immortal knows the way through.
But about a hundred years ago, one of Mal’s past reincarnations grew disillusioned with humanity (not that you can really blame the guy), and he took a potion to forget everything. As a result, nobody’s been tending to the tree since.
This actually has nothing to do with why the Glimourie is fading—that’s an entirely separate (and frankly bizarre) plot point.
Getting back to the current point, Mal is overwhelmed by the idea that she might have to gain all the world’s memories back in order to find and tend to the tree. She runs off on her fellow questers in the middle of the night with her pet griffin Gelifen (the one referenced in the book’s blurb, and the pet who’s about to be fridged). Christopher, our other MC, follows her.
The three are attacked by the assassin once again. Gelifen tries to protect Mal, but is killed, which prompts the girl to decide to recover her memories after all.
In order to keep up the narrative’s breakneck pace, there was no time for Mal to process the burden laid before her. Instead of realizing species like Gelifen could’ve gone extinct if she didn’t act, Gelifen had to die, because…it’s harsher than kids would expect?
Gelifen’s death veers into the territory of a phenomenon that happens frequently within the world of storytelling. Simply put, authors need things to happen, and characters need to make decisions—sometimes, a little bit quicker or more conveniently than they would in real life.
One of the ways authors move the plot forward is by placing immediate and/or drastic consequences on the character’s actions.
Let’s take the origin story of Spider-Man (as a better example). Everyone knows the tale—Peter gains powers, Peter realizes he could earn fame, and he spurns the chance to catch a dangerous thief because he’s only interested in the attention. But then the thief goes on to burglarize his apartment and kill his Uncle Ben.
Did Peter know the thief was going to kill his uncle? Of course not. But what matters here is that the thief going on to steal from or hurt another innocent person was the direct result of Peter’s refusal to act. The writers picked Ben because it held emotional significance for Peter—but it doesn’t really matter who the victim was. The point is, a choice Peter made directly caused harm, prompting him to take responsibility.
In the case of Impossible Creatures, Gelifen didn’t die because Mal refused to take the potion—he died trying to protect Mal from the assassin. The key factors in the scenario were the existence of the assassin, and Gelifen’s choice to protect Mal rather than to escape or hide. If the assassin were removed, or Gelifen had taken cover, then Gelifen wouldn’t have died.
Even if Mal had decided to immediately take the potion, the assassin still would’ve been at large. Even if she hadn’t left the group in the middle of the night, the assassin still would’ve been at large—and presumably wouldn’t have stopped trying to kill Mal until somebody had stopped him. And I doubt Gelifen wouldn’t have also attempted to protect his friend no matter the case.
Linking Gelifen’s death to Mal’s turmoil is an unfair heaping of blame onto a young girl who’s already facing an impossible decision.
Supporting Cast
The side characters felt more or less like they were just there. Nighthand had the most page time of the additional cast, and he received the most personality—to the sum of “I’m gruff, but sometimes I also do nice things.”
We eventually learned he was a berserker, part of an ancient race? bloodline? volunteer group? who guarded the Immortal.
(Though I do wonder how he ever got to be that way, considering the Immortal hadn’t been around for longer than he’d been alive. His age was never specified; unless it was just more of a race thing rather than a group of volunteers.)
Irian had basically no personality. She was there to provide the group with information. I know we learned later on she was partially some sort of sea creature; but we received zero backstory or explanation for her fascination with the sea until a good chunk into the book. And we didn’t really know anything about her before that.
Irian’s romance with Nighthand could’ve been sweet; but any mentions were sparser than the glimpse of a living mother in a Disney movie. I don’t know if Rundell was worried kids wouldn’t be interested in romance, so she kept it minimal. Though in that case, why bother including the romance in the first place? I’ve read plenty of middle grade stories where the adults were either in previously-established relationships, or didn’t develop a romance at all.
The ratatoska was funny; but once again, given about the same level of surface characterization as the others. Nobody else in the book appeared long enough to develop any sort of a personality at all.
The Villain
Some people have the impression that a villain is like the clump of hair stuffed down a shower drain—repulsive, mysterious, and best dealt with as quickly and briefly as possible.
We learn in about the last twenty pages of the book that there’s this man who’s been trying to absorb the power of the Glimourie tree. In doing so, he’s actually been physically melding with it—just vibing in a dark cave all alone for a hundred years, slowly becoming a half-tree, half-man with intense and undefined magical powers.
I know not all antagonists will have the charisma of a Disney villain. But a villain isn’t just a lump of generic evil to provide a bump in the road—and they’re certainly not just dropped in the story’s last act. Hell, even villains who don’t have the most complex backstories—like Sauron from Lord of the Rings, or Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars—are constant presences throughout their respective tales. The threat they pose is integral to the plot and themes. If you removed either from the beginning, then neither of those stories would make any sense.
But the villain in Impossible Creatures had no business being in the story (except to provide a shocking last-minute development, which I’ll get to later). The Archipelago could’ve easily been failing because an Immortal hadn’t been around to tend to the Glimourie tree for a hundred years. Everything else could’ve remained the same—Mal’s burden at having to shoulder her mantle, and the need to save the dying races of the islands.
The villain only provided three relevant plot points:
1) Mal almost getting killed in the beginning. In escaping the killer, she jumped into a river that connected to a lake behind Christopher’s grandfather’s house, which is how she and Christopher first met.
2) Gelifen getting killed halfway through.
3) At the very end, once Christopher and Mal have saved the tree, they still have to get rid of the villain, who’s grown far too powerful for either of them to defeat in a straight-up fight. So Mal has the idea to use her flying coat to carry him up into the sun, thereby killing both of them in the process.
Counter 1) The story’s main conflict was the dying of the Glimourie, and the endangerment of magical species. Why that couldn’t be intense enough of a problem to pull Mal and Christopher together, I don’t know.
Maybe Gelifen could’ve been playing in the river behind Mal’s house, grown weak for a moment as the magic continued to fade, and then fallen into the water that linked the Archipelago to Christopher’s world. Mal could’ve jumped in after her friend, ended up at Christopher’s grandfather’s house, and asked the boy for help in solving the mystery of the disappearing magic.
Perchance there wouldn’t have been the opportunity for the snappy opening “It was a very fine day, until somebody tried to kill her.” But I think Rundell could’ve come up with another equally as compelling first line.
Counter 2) Gelifen didn’t necessarily need to die to prompt Mal to make her decision. He’s the last of his species, and his fragile state represents all that’s at stake if nobody finds and tends to the tree. Why couldn’t Mal have been affected by how her choice could devastate his future? Maybe he could’ve gotten ill or injured by some other means, and she could’ve been reminded of all the innocent lives that were on the line. We wouldn’t have needed an assassin in that case.
Counter 3) Sacrifice permeates modern storytelling—and it does have its place. But it needs to be earned in the narrative. There must be no other way for the characters to solve the problem. The topic of ending one’s life should never be taken lightly, nor tossed around just for shock value.
Honestly, I know Rundell, like us all, is allowed to write whatever the hell she wants (bar problematic content).
And if it made her happy to sacrifice Mal? Then she had every right to do that.
But it smacked of the same vein of shock-value death that permeates modern adult fantasy.
What’s the last thing a children’s author would do? Oh yeah—kill off one of the main characters!
* * *
WORLDBUILDING
Or, the lack thereof.
I’m not expecting a thirty-page travel brochure; but there are some basics good worldbuilding should cover: aesthetics, customs, and cultural differences.
We should have information on:
-What a place looks like, and how the people tailor their appearances
-Any plot-relevant customs
-If the MCs are familiar with the culture or not
Every village in the Archipelago should’ve been given the impression of well-worn customs and deeply-rooted history—not the generic nothingness of a rest stop on the highway.
Especially considering they represent magical creatures from around the world (or so I assume, since the nations that used to border the Archipelago are only Greenland, France, Brazil, and Nova Scotia). Regardless, I assumed based on the blurb it was supposed to be a mishmash of worldly cultures? But maybe that was my mistake—I don’t know if Rundell intended it to be a mainly northern-based culture that was just sealed away from the rest of the world.
And even then, that doesn’t mean the Archipelago wouldn’t have had its own ancient and richly-developed culture(s).
* * *
WRITING
I’m not sure why anyone was comparing Rundell to Tolkien just on the language alone. It was 90% tell and not show—and I couldn’t tell you what any of the places looked like, except that they had buildings, hills, and animals.
She was also excessively fond of using phrases inserted into a sentence by means of a hyphen, which made for a clunky read.
And lastly, the writing itself seemed to be trying to convince me that the book was already a classic.
Take this sentence, for example—
“And then she spoke the most powerful and exhausting, the bravest, most exasperating and galvanic sentence in the human language.”
This is barely into the beginning of the book, where Mal is asking Christopher for help.
For some people, asking for help is hard. But a sentence like that only makes sense if the context supports it. As far as we know, at this point in the story, Mal has no issue asking others for help (especially if she’s currently being chased by an assassin).
It makes no sense to frame her plea as if she’s suffering an intense emotional debate—because she’s not. She literally ran away to find help. She didn’t even hesitate to ask this of a complete stranger.
But for some reason, Rundell decided to frame that as an act of intense emotional sacrifice, even though there was no indication that Mal was thinking that at all.
But it’s quite the quotable blurb for an “author of the ages,” isn’t it?
(And not to be nitpicky, but that’s not even a well-written sentence. Rundell starts with a pair of descriptors, then switches to a comma-separated list, then back to pairing, in one drawn-out distraction. And she also mixes adjectives that need “most” with ones that don’t.
It would’ve read better like this:
“And then she spoke the bravest, most exhausting, and galvanic sentence in the human language.”)
* * *
PLOT
We’ve covered off on some of the plot points above.
But in general, our quest wasn’t any different than your run-of-the-mill children’s fare—the characters went to point A, then point B, then point C, so on and so forth as they completed a myriad of tasks that somehow or other added up to the final conclusion. The quests varied from somewhat difficult to barely an inconvenience.
Nitpick #1: The crew had to ask some fearsome, withdrawn sphinxes for information they somehow knew the creatures possessed—and after one particularly cranky beast asked them a few common riddles, his mother came along to bemoan how she never really liked challenging and eating visitors anyway. Then she told them everything they needed to know—namely, about Mal’s previous incarnation who’d refused to attend to his duties.
I couldn’t help but wonder why the sphinxes wouldn’t have spread that information sooner? The denizens of the Archipelago had been wondering what had happened to the Immortal and the tree for the past hundred years—and yet, the sphinxes never thought to tell anyone what they knew? Even if they were aloof and standoffish, did they not possess any inkling of how the safety of the tree could affect the entire Archipelago?
Nitpick #2: To recover Mal’s memories, the crew had to ask the centaurs of the Archipelago to brew them up a special potion. But, apparently, only one centaur knew the recipe—and he happened to be a cold-blooded killer, locked up on an inescapable island of murderers. What were the odds? And why would only one person have known that potion?! It seems like the kind of thing they would’ve kept in their back pockets, just in case.
Nitpick #3: Getting to the Island of Murderers was apparently easy; but the waters around the land were charmed to never let anyone escape.
We learned a boat made of dryad wood could surpass the barriers. But where to find one?
Conveniently, somebody had shared a tale about a boat made of dryad wood shortly before our heroes decided to go and find it.
I am not a huge fan of the phenomenon of characters discovering pertinent information the moment it becomes useful. A bit of foreshadowing is always nice—perhaps if the tale that tipped the characters off had been shared earlier, before the boat had become a concern. Otherwise, it comes off like “here’s a problem we don’t know how to solve—but look! The exact answer we need just fell out of the sky.”
* * *
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you’re between the ages of 8-12 and don’t mind gross jokes, or wouldn’t be traumatized by a pet or a major character death, then you’d probably like this book.
If you’re an adult, it reads quick enough as a run-of-the-mill fantasy jaunt. Though there’s plenty of other books to satiate your desires elsewhere.
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