We were so excited to see this insightful review of Eugen’s MAGE OF FOOLS in the The BFSA Review, edition #17.
This wonderful novel left me breathless at Eugen Bacon’s imagination and the strength of her craft. I devoured this book in a couple of sittngs; marvelling at the world building, the writng and the sheer skill with which it is put together.
-JAMIE MOLLART, THE BFSA REVIEW, #17
She writes with taut muscular prose and arranges it into chapters which read like vignettes, each
one actng as a snapshot window into the fastmoving plot. It is at once poetic, lyrical and brutal, in both words and narrative. Extreme violence sits comfortably next to philosophy, next to allegory, it’s a virtuoso juggling act.
This novel is perfect on a sentence level and beautiful as a creative whole. The writng is sparse, but with a poignancy and stance which makes the words seems allegorical.
Mage of Fools
In the dystopian world of Mafinga, Jasmin must contend with a dictator’s sorcerer to cleanse the socialist state of its deadly pollution. Mafinga's malevolent king dislikes books and, together with his sorcerer Atari, has collapsed the environment to almost uninhabitable. The sun has killed all the able men, including Jasmin’s husband Godi. But Jasmin has Godi’s secret story machine that tells of a better world, far different from the wastelands of Mafinga. Jasmin’s crime for possessing the machine and its forbidden literature filled with subversive text is punishable by death. Fate grants a cruel reprieve in the service of a childless queen who claims Jasmin’s children as her own. Jasmin is powerless—until she discovers secrets behind the king and his sorcerer. |