#RRSciFiMonth YA Weekend: Dreamseeker by C.S. Friedman

Sci-Fi November is a month-long blog event hosted by Rinn Reads and Over The Effing Rainbow this year, created to celebrate everything amazing about science fiction! From TV shows to movies, books to comics, and everything else in between, it is intended to help science fiction lovers share their love and passion for this genre and its many, many fandoms.

A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Dreamseeker by C.S. Friedman

Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

Series: Book 2 of Dreamwalker

Publisher: DAW (11/3/15)

Author Information: Website

Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dreamseeker is the sequel to Dreamwalker and the second novel of C.S. Friedman’s Young Adult portal fantasy series–though it also has high crossover appeal for readers of adult spec fic. In addition, it features a uniquely fresh take on parallel worlds. With multiple genres colliding here to form an eclectic picture of magic and mysticism meeting advanced technology and scientific theory, you can expect to see an interesting blend of sci-fi and fantasy elements too.

The novel starts by immediately and mercilessly tossing us right back into the story, which picks up shortly after the end of the first book. As such, I probably wouldn’t recommend starting the series here because it cannot be read as a standalone, and the narrative does not provide much in the way of reminders when it comes to what happened in Dreamwalker. It’s been quite a while since I read that book myself, but after a while I was able to piece together all the details and remember again.

Our protagonist, Jesse Drake, has discovered that she is a Changeling. Not only is she not the person she thought she was, she is shocked to find out that she isn’t even from this universe! On the surface, Jesse realizes this explains a lot. Ever since she can remember, she has been dreaming of all these strange places. As an artist, she has been incorporating much of her dream aspects into her work…until one day, her paintings attract the attention of someone from an alternate world.

Jesse’s adventures following those events ended up resulting in the destruction of one of the dimensional gates into this world, allowing her to escape from her shadowy enemies.  But just because she’s home now doesn’t mean she’s safe. And now she has starting dreaming some dark and disturbing things. Furthermore, there is the situation involving Jesse’s mother, who hasn’t been the same person since the injuries she sustained in an attack that was aimed at her daughter.

To save her mother and to protect herself and her family, Jesse is going to have to face her enemies and enter their world once more. Despite the direness of the situation, however, the plot of this book did not quite grab me as much as the first one.

I think this was due to several reasons. First, there was the confusion of trying to remember what happened in the first book. Story-wise, I could recall most of what happened, but it was the finer details I struggled with, like the magical mechanics behind the fetters. I also think I could have benefited from some brief reminders or explanations into the backgrounds of all the other characters, especially when it came to Jesse’s allies in the other world like Isaac and Sebastian since they both played pretty big roles in this book.

Second, the character I would actually have liked to see more of was mostly absent, which surprised me. Devon, whom I had hopes would be shaping up to be Jesse’s love interest in the first book, turned out to have very little to do with this story. It just seemed strange to me that the author would introduce romantic tension between Jesse and Devon, and then Jesse and Isaac, only to abandon this thread all together in this sequel. I can only guess Friedman decided to eschew with the romance completely and just focus on the intrigue, which in truth I wouldn’t have minded so much if Devon hadn’t been one of my favorite characters from Dreamwalker. Ah well, such is life.

Third, I know this sounds horrible, but I just couldn’t really understand Jesse’s motivations for going back into the other world. I understood that she wanted to help her mother, and perhaps she was wracked with the guilty knowledge that if it hadn’t been for Jesse, their house probably wouldn’t have burned down and her mom wouldn’t have been injured in the first place. But would it be enough to explain plunging headfirst into danger and possible death again? In the first book, Jesse’s brother Tommy was stolen away, so it made perfect sense to go through the gate to get him back. But in this book, Jesse’s mom is injured but at least her children are by her side. Wouldn’t the best thing to do (at least in the short term) have been to support her mother? By risking her own life, Jesse also risked the potential of piling even more grief and anguish onto her mom’s already fragile frame of mind.

These issues aside, however, I actually thought the book was pretty good. In my review of Dreamwalker, I said that the first book was a promising start to what has the potential to become a great new series. I still think I’m right, even if Dreamseeker wasn’t quite convincing, but the events in this sequel succeeds in setting up for more exciting things to come. Only time will tell if the next novel will get us back on track, but I’m looking forward to finding out.

More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of Dreamwalker (Book 1)