Review: The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this, for a few reasons.

First of all, it's wonderfully literate, and not just in the sense that the author is well-read and draws on lots of literature for her central concept. The prose is highly competent, the kind that I can just relax into and be carried along, knowing that any effect it creates is intentional, not accidental. Of course, this is what you'd expect from someone who has a PhD in English literature and lectures in English, but I've been surprised and disappointed before in this regard.

It doesn't quite make it to my "well-edited" shelf, though, for a couple of reasons. There are some words missed out of sentences that haven't been caught (that's hard to catch), and a few other minor glitches, including at least one continuity error; but more importantly, someone, presumably the editor at the US publishing house, has found it necessary to insert distinctively American turns of phrase like "he can come stay" into the mouth of the main narrator, a New Zealander who has lived in NZ his whole life and doesn't even mention knowing anyone who's American.

I didn't find too many other flaws, though. I loved the fact that the main narrator (there are a few chapters not from his first-person point of view) has a highly complicated relationship with his younger brother right from the start, the kind of complicated relationship one can only have with a sibling: wanting to protect him, resenting that he doesn't seem to need protection, then resenting when he does ask for help, but feeling obligated to provide it, meanwhile feeling guilty for that one thing more than a decade ago that they've never talked about, not wanting to say the hurtful thing but saying it anyway, and so forth. It gives the character a depth and realistic heft I don't often see in SFF.

That realism helps to ground the fantasy plot, which is based around the premise that some people can "read" characters out of books if they connect to the character in a certain way. Charlie, the younger brother of the narrator, has a particular talent for it; most people only do it occasionally in their lives and never realize, but he can do it consciously and deliberately (as well as more-or-less accidentally when distracted). A number of these fictional people feature, including the delightful Millie, who was a 1930s girl detective along the lines of Nancy Drew (but British) who escaped after being read out by Charlie when he was quite young, and has now grown to adulthood.

Along with various other book people, including five versions of Mr. Darcy (readers connect to him a lot), Millie lives in a fictional Victorian street hidden in the heart of Wellington, New Zealand. I enjoyed the Wellington parts, in which the city does that urban-fantasy thing of being a setting so vivid it's almost a character. I've only lived in Wellington myself for a few weeks once, while working on contract for a government department, but I like the city, and it's always good to see someone who clearly loves a place describe it.

The other slight weakness I noted is that how authentic the characters' dialog (and behaviour) is to their originals waxes and wanes quite a bit, based on whether they are being background colour or contributing directly to the plot and conveying important information. It would be very difficult to keep them all in character all the time and still have them move things along, though, so I forgive it. Also, they're not exactly the characters as written by the authors; they're readers' interpretations, which is quite a different thing (hence the five Darcys looking and acting somewhat different from each other).

Along with the enjoyable characters, setting, and premise, we get an exciting and suspenseful plot with plenty of mystery, conflict, high stakes, and personal significance to the characters.

All in all, it's a great ride, and I'm glad I came across it (though I can't remember where). Unfortunately, the author's other books sound too dark for me. Perhaps in time she'll write something more similar to this, a fun, dramatic romp with a strong serious side to it, like one of her main inspirations, Charles Dickens himself. It very nearly made me want to read David Copperfield, and that's quite an achievement considering how little I usually want to read classic literature.

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