God Save the Queen

[sawyl]

I've recently finished reading God Save the Queen by Mike Carey and John Bolton. Here are a few vague, unformed thoughts.

Faerie is in turmoil. Queen Mab has escaped from her imprisonment and returned to deal with her usurper, Titania. London, at least Linda's part of it, isn't much more settled. In an attempt to deal with her father's desertion and her mother's alcoholism, Linda decides to knock her homework on the head and go out for a night on the town with her school friend Jeff, telling him that they must, "run fast, dance like animals and say yes to everything." Not a good maxim to cleave to when your new best friends are offering to pump you full of heroin in return for a few drops of your blood.

After a close encounter with one of Mab's archers during a run along the border of Faerie with her new pals, Linda is left for dead. Rescued by the Cluracan, another renegade from Mab's court, Linda learns a disturbing truth about her past and reluctantly promises to aid Titania, should the queen ever need her help. When the secret of Mab's escape accidentally turns up in a dream, Linda finds herself being asked to honour her favour, sooner than expected.

I liked God Save the Queen, although I'm not sure it completely works. The strength of the first part of the story, Linda's hopeless life and decent into drugs gives, way towards the end. As the story becomes more redemptive, the characters become less convincing at precisely the point where they should convince most, probably because they aren't given enough space to grow into their new relationships. Bolton's art, full of nice little touches, is quite beautiful with realistic portrayals of the human characters contrasting with the expressionist faeries and drug sequences. There are also encounters with a friends from the Sandman days — including Nuala and Lucian — and, inevitably given that faeries are involved, Puck.