Official Review: Absent Hero (Gone To Wonder: Episode One)

[RussetDivinity]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Absent Hero (Gone To Wonder: Episode One)" by Z.T. Burian.]

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Absent Hero (Gone to Wonder: Episode One) is one of those books that’s intriguing from the very first chapter, even if you don’t entirely understand what’s going on. The reader is thrown directly into the story, following Wendy Danek and her friends as they try to help save their favorite amusement park, Finnegan’s Wonder, from whatever will happen to it now that its creator, Clayton Ferris, is gone. However, Finnegan’s Wonder isn’t any amusement park; it’s based on a steampunk video game, Finnegan’s Folly, and there’s a story inside the park with an arc that can stretch out for months. I got completely lost in the story and the richness of it all, and I give it 4 out of 4 stars.

As I mentioned above, it’s at first hard to understand what’s going on. Z. T. Burian throws readers into a story taking place in the near future, complete with AR (augmented reality) goggles and automen, robots that can walk about while being controlled by a person. It took me a few chapters to really work my way into the story, but once I did, I was very glad I’d continued. The world of the park, where most of the story takes place, is so rich that it might have been diluted by long introductions of everything, and while we didn’t see much of Wendy’s life outside of the park, I didn’t mind. The story is centered on a place filled with wonder and magic, and that’s exactly where it ought to be.

Wendy and her friends are distinct in their characterization, and all of them felt like believable teens trying to do something without entirely knowing what to do or how to go about it. It felt like a proper hero’s journey, complete with heroes who knew all about the traditional arc of the hero’s journey (after all, the video game they’re fans of has that journey as well) but without the overconfidence that might give in other books. Even though Wendy knows that she’s meant to act, meant to make sure the park isn’t changed into something more touristy, she doesn’t always know which would be the right way to act or who she can trust. If those overconfident, genre-savvy heroes are a deconstruction of the hero’s journey, then Absent Hero is a reconstruction, bringing back the innocence of what once was.

The book as a whole made me think of what books are meant to be. They aren’t meant to be just an escape (though Absent Hero feels wonderfully escapist at its best moments) or just a lesson (though it has that as well, even if it feels a bit muddled by the end). They’re meant to be something to walk out of with a fresh sense of wonder and something to return to and find a new facet of it. That’s what Finnegan’s wonder does for Wendy and her friends, and that’s what Absent Hero did for me. It was full of wonder and magic, even if the magic largely came from technological wizardry.

Absent Hero isn’t without its flaws, but I think the parts it gets right very much overwhelm those. I’m looking forward to reading the next episode, and until then, I’ll have a new wonder to dream about.

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[Kappy]

Excellent review. This sounds like an author who regularly thinks outside the box.