Advertisement

Originally published in 1985, Mulengro is being reissued in a new edition by Tor in its Orb Books imprint. In one of those strange mind-twists, 1985 seems both an unutterably long time ago (a child born in that year would be 19 this year!) and almost yesterday. Most literature bears the imprint of its era, whether it will or not; things get dated as they grow older, or even fall out of favour and then back in, if the work is old enough to carry that kind of baggage. Charles de Lint's work, however, has something of a timeless quality. Once he moved past his very early stories and into the mature body of his work, he acquired a luminosity of presence that doesn't fade with the passage of time.

Charles de Lint has made his career with books which have a foot in both fantasy and ordinary workaday worlds; in his stories, the two are so intimately interwoven that it is sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Mulengro, although shifting a shade more into Stephen King-esque horror rather than straight fantasy, is no exception. In his usual inimitable way de Lint enters the world of the Romany and makes it part of our own world -- we share the lives of people sometimes very different from ourselves, and somehow he manages to get into their heads. Whether he chooses to write of the Native American skinwalkers or of Romany drabarne, he produces characters that engage the reader's interest and sympathy, and while he is in unfamiliar territory here -- he even says so outright in the author's note -- he is by no means lost, or without a map.

This is a good, solid, engaging read, and I am glad to see it reissued in a new edition -- it very much deserves the honour.

Oh, and I'm naming my next cat Boboko, after one of the most endearing animal characters I've ever met in print. Anyone who wants to know why will get handed a copy of Mulengro.

Alma A. Hromic, addicted (in random order) to coffee, chocolate and books, has a constant and chronic problem of "too many books, not enough bookshelves". When not collecting more books and avidly reading them (with a cup of coffee at hand), she keeps busy writing her own. Following her successful two-volume fantasy series, Changer of Days, her latest novel, Jin-shei, is due out from Harper San Francisco in the spring of 2004.