Janna Fangfingers, by Jim McPherson
Book Review by Claire Nash
Have you read this book?
Janna Fangfingers, written by Jim McPherson, is an epic tale of tails, vampires, witches, devils, gods, deviants, extra-terrestrial beings, zombies, multiple dimensions and more. Set in a modern place called Aka Godbad City, McPherson takes his readers on a journey through a story within the story, as told by the famous "Legendarian" Jordan or Jordy Tethys.
Tethys is what McPherson's world refers to as a deviant, meaning his mortal parents were possessed by devils and gods when he was conceived. The resulting entity (Jordan) is a man (or sometimes a woman) who lives an average lifetime of 30 years, then dies and is reincarnated into the body of one of his future blood-relatives. With each reincarnation, the body he is reincarnated first dies (of natural or unnatural causes) to allow him in and he then retains his consciousness and memories of previous lifetimes in each new body. Along the way, he/she observes the world of devils and records the stories of their many eras of ruling the land, fighting for power, creating armies of the dead and nearly destroying the hidden "Inner Earth" known as the "Hidden Headworld," in which these mythical creatures reside in.
Tethys also has a magical Quill, his brain-rock power-focus, with which he can draw himself, or others into specific locations or with new bodily features or possessions that materialize into reality when he draws them. He keeps his Quill in a hat adorned with the severed "teetee tails" of dead rats and bats. He is able to decipher the notches on the tails as other stories that are sort of stored on the tails. As a result of his nature, Tethys accompanies many devils on conquests of love, hate, sex and war which shape the history of their world.
This book begins when Tethys has lived about 1,000 years' worth of lifetimes and he makes his living by recounting historical tales in exchange for beer and occasional lodging. Tethys is called to tell a tale to the wealthy and powerful Alpha Centauri, present governor of Aka Godbad City. Centauri's business is in the process of creating a museum of the Hidden continent of Sedon Moloch, an original god/ruler of the Inner Earth. Centauri seeks to rid the continent of vampires and zombies and asks Tethys to tell him the story of how Sedon's first-born triplet Devil-children rule, fight, and are finally destroyed themselves in the times when zombies were first sighted.
The tale itself includes and important female character named Janna Somata, a human ruler of a portion of the Headworld. Janna becomes the lover of Abaddon Chaos, one of Sedon's triplets. She and Chaos successfully have a child, without Chaos having to possess a human shell, and other Devic forces attempt to take that child away from them in an attempt to secure power for themselves. Janna sends the child into the Outer Earth (our modern Earth) to save its life and becomes cursed by a Nergalid being so that she may never give birth to a live child again. This puts Janna in an angry, saddened state when the curse proves to be true and she has stillborn after stillborn from Chaos. She turns away from Chaos and tells him that he must reverse the curse if he ever wishes to be loved by her again. Chaos thus becomes obsessed with breaking the curse and breaks many Devic decrees/laws by fighting other devils on sacred grounds.
The whole of the Headworld waits for Great Sedon, their sleeping god to awaken and punish his son for directly disobeying Sedonic Law, but it never happens. Eventually, Janna's own parents try to bring Chaos to justice themselves, ending in the death of Janna's birth father. Janna then becomes a vampire and Chaos accidentally destroys his triplet sister Harmony. Then Chaos goes insane and attempts to fight his triplet brother to the death. In the meantime, Tethys observes and is apart of this tale as Chaos' good friend and also as a part-time lover of Janna's. There is a war on humanity as the Nergalids that cursed Janna raise an army of zombies to aid in their attempt to seize power and both Chaos and Order are brought to justice by their father. The story does not quite end at the end of the book, though with Janna Somata making an appearance in the present Tethys' hotel room to demand his help with a secretive mission, leading into McPherson's ddess Gambit series.
The story, appears at first to be hard to comprehend with a vast store of Phantacea jargon and complicated characters that often have multiple names. McPherson does well to remedy this disposition, however, with an in-depth character list and prologue for the reader to reference. It took this writer a while to get into the book without reading the character list, but once I understood it, the book was AMAZING! A definite recommendation for those with large imaginations and ability to recall details that come up later in the story lines. Though if you are a first-timer to Phantacea like I was, do yourself a favor and read the character list and prologue first.
Tethys is what McPherson's world refers to as a deviant, meaning his mortal parents were possessed by devils and gods when he was conceived. The resulting entity (Jordan) is a man (or sometimes a woman) who lives an average lifetime of 30 years, then dies and is reincarnated into the body of one of his future blood-relatives. With each reincarnation, the body he is reincarnated first dies (of natural or unnatural causes) to allow him in and he then retains his consciousness and memories of previous lifetimes in each new body. Along the way, he/she observes the world of devils and records the stories of their many eras of ruling the land, fighting for power, creating armies of the dead and nearly destroying the hidden "Inner Earth" known as the "Hidden Headworld," in which these mythical creatures reside in.
Tethys also has a magical Quill, his brain-rock power-focus, with which he can draw himself, or others into specific locations or with new bodily features or possessions that materialize into reality when he draws them. He keeps his Quill in a hat adorned with the severed "teetee tails" of dead rats and bats. He is able to decipher the notches on the tails as other stories that are sort of stored on the tails. As a result of his nature, Tethys accompanies many devils on conquests of love, hate, sex and war which shape the history of their world.
This book begins when Tethys has lived about 1,000 years' worth of lifetimes and he makes his living by recounting historical tales in exchange for beer and occasional lodging. Tethys is called to tell a tale to the wealthy and powerful Alpha Centauri, present governor of Aka Godbad City. Centauri's business is in the process of creating a museum of the Hidden continent of Sedon Moloch, an original god/ruler of the Inner Earth. Centauri seeks to rid the continent of vampires and zombies and asks Tethys to tell him the story of how Sedon's first-born triplet Devil-children rule, fight, and are finally destroyed themselves in the times when zombies were first sighted.
The tale itself includes and important female character named Janna Somata, a human ruler of a portion of the Headworld. Janna becomes the lover of Abaddon Chaos, one of Sedon's triplets. She and Chaos successfully have a child, without Chaos having to possess a human shell, and other Devic forces attempt to take that child away from them in an attempt to secure power for themselves. Janna sends the child into the Outer Earth (our modern Earth) to save its life and becomes cursed by a Nergalid being so that she may never give birth to a live child again. This puts Janna in an angry, saddened state when the curse proves to be true and she has stillborn after stillborn from Chaos. She turns away from Chaos and tells him that he must reverse the curse if he ever wishes to be loved by her again. Chaos thus becomes obsessed with breaking the curse and breaks many Devic decrees/laws by fighting other devils on sacred grounds.
The whole of the Headworld waits for Great Sedon, their sleeping god to awaken and punish his son for directly disobeying Sedonic Law, but it never happens. Eventually, Janna's own parents try to bring Chaos to justice themselves, ending in the death of Janna's birth father. Janna then becomes a vampire and Chaos accidentally destroys his triplet sister Harmony. Then Chaos goes insane and attempts to fight his triplet brother to the death. In the meantime, Tethys observes and is apart of this tale as Chaos' good friend and also as a part-time lover of Janna's. There is a war on humanity as the Nergalids that cursed Janna raise an army of zombies to aid in their attempt to seize power and both Chaos and Order are brought to justice by their father. The story does not quite end at the end of the book, though with Janna Somata making an appearance in the present Tethys' hotel room to demand his help with a secretive mission, leading into McPherson's ddess Gambit series.
The story, appears at first to be hard to comprehend with a vast store of Phantacea jargon and complicated characters that often have multiple names. McPherson does well to remedy this disposition, however, with an in-depth character list and prologue for the reader to reference. It took this writer a while to get into the book without reading the character list, but once I understood it, the book was AMAZING! A definite recommendation for those with large imaginations and ability to recall details that come up later in the story lines. Though if you are a first-timer to Phantacea like I was, do yourself a favor and read the character list and prologue first.
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