The City Beyond the Sands by Michael K Rose

 The City Beyond the Sands

Michael K Rose

Michael Rose is an independent writer from the United States of America. He graduated from Maine Gould Academy in 1997 and received a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from ASU, which just so happens to be mine and our editor’s alma mater (For undergrad, anyway.). He published his first novel, Sergeant Rieley's Account, in 2011, set in the same science fiction universe as his Sullivan's saga series, which started with Sullivan's War published in 2012. He went on to write science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. Today's review focuses on a non-science fiction work of his The City Beyond the Sands.

The City Beyond the Sands would likely be considered by most of my readers an example of what's now called the isekai genre. Where someone from our world and time ends up somewhere and somewhen else, usually a fantastical place, where the main character becomes a walking talking out of context problem for the villains of the story. The Japanese versions have become infamous for having gamified fantasy worlds, where everyone has levels and video game-style skills, and so on (Another example is Gate, where the JSDF goes through a portal to a medieval fantasy world.). Although I should note there are plenty of Japanese stories that don't feature this. My constant argument is that this genre is a living breathing example of how Japanese and American pop culture are joined at the hip, because American movies and stories have been doing this since at least Mark Twain via A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Of course the British could point to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 so who even started this idea is up in the air. In fact, given that John Carter and Dejah Thoris first emerged in 1912, we can't even say that the Japanese started the idea of giving the protagonists superpowers to help them navigate their strange new worlds, nor can we give them credit for the idea of trapping protagonists into video games since Tron is waving at us from 1982. That isn't to say that the Japanese haven't brought their own ideas and twists to the genre, they certainly have. The City Beyond the Sands, however, draws its ancestry from American pulps and adventure stories by folks like Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs to give us a solidly western example of the genre. So let's take a look.

Will Kelly is pretty much an average joe in the year of our lord 2014 AD. While sadly divorced he works hard to make sure he has time to spend with his 2-year-old son so it's jarring when he goes out to water his plants one day, blacks out, and wakes up in the rather fantastic world of Dushara. While he's amazed by the sights and sounds of the new world, he cannot let go of his desire to see his son and so will go to the very edges of the known world to find a way back home (Awwww). Will is our main protagonist here and he's the driving force of the plot. It's his desire to get home that starts the quest and keeps it going and it's his doubts that tend to be the most profound because of that. Mr. Rose does a good job keeping Kelly a fairly average guy, as opposed to making him some ex-special forces genius with a rack of degrees which I got to give Mr. Rose credit for. It's way too easy to pump your main character in stories like this, in fact, the temptation has rarely been resisted. That said, I have to wonder if Mr. Rose did too good of a job. While I think for example that Will is ridiculously lucky in sword fights, he's never presented as especially skilled, in fact, I can't really think of anything about Will that stands out beyond his parental born drive to get home so he can be a bit bland.  I can't help but wonder if Mr. Rose agreed with me since he didn't make Will the leader of our adventuring band, that burden goes to another character.

Daniel Kline has been in the world of Dushara for years now, unlike Will, he's from the 1970s, although they're both Americans. Daniel's been making a living among the English Puritan descended people he lives with by writing adventure stories and selling them to Arab traders and others. This has gotten him a certain level of fame, although fortune is difficult given that the people he lives among are pre printing press, and he's rejected any attempt to recreate the printing press as too expensive.  So he suffers from people copying his work, reselling, and not sharing any of the profit with him. This gives us a peek into Daniel's character, this is a guy who is brave and fairly clever but lacks confidence and resolution. So he settled in the first culture he came into contact with, which lucky for him happened to be a group of English speakers and works out a low effort way to make a decent living and then stops. Well, low effort compared to learning to farm at the 1600s level of technology anyways.  Daniel often is the voice of caution asking if the other characters want to do this. He isn't always wrong though as the others are often willing to take rather dumb risks but without Will, he's willing to just kinda sit there. However, neither Will nor Daniel are in this alone.

There's also George, who is a native-born Dusharan even if his ancestors came from Britain. See Dushara has a number of various peoples living in city-states and scattered settlements, descended from groups that were pulled from Earth and dropped onto Dushara willy nilly. In this case, a group of British colonists ended up going a lot farther from home than they planned for. George is basically along for the ride at first and enjoys the chance to go farther than anyone else in his culture has yet. He's a good guy but is foolhardy and unfocused so in a lot of ways, he just functions as basic muscle for Will and Daniel. Second is Sobhuza, who like Will and Daniel is from Earth but was sent to Dushara from the year 1902 in South Africa where he was a black scout for the British Army against the Boers. Sobhuza would like to get home but would settle for finding other Swazi or at least other black Africans to settle down with because so far all he's found are Hindi Indians, Arabs, Greeks, Mongols, and more Englishmen (They’re everywhere…) and I'm guessing he's tired of constantly feeling like an alien (I’d feel the same way…). Although that's never really gone into (Which is a shame.).  When he finds out that Daniel and Will are proposing to explore the outer edges of the known world and make contact with new peoples... Well, he's all for that. Now I like that he has a goal that roughly aligns but isn't the same as the others but the story doesn't really explore that or the dramatically different life experiences of the four men in question. Any friction points are basically waved off by them all being just good dudes together despite their cultures being divided by centuries and the fact that all four men are bringing different baggage to the table (Which is… a touch remarkable.  But maybe on some level they’re just used to negotiating that shit by now?). And then there's Ophelia, who like George is a native of Dushara, born in a city established by Renaissance Greeks who ended up as castaways on a different world. Her father trained her to speak English, Arabic and several other languages as well as read them only so he could marry her to a very wealthy Arab trader old enough to be her grandfather. Shockingly the woman who had been allowed to travel and learn didn't like the idea of giving all that up for a fat old stranger. So she simply runs away and when she finds our main characters, she's happy to join their merry band as long as they do her a favor first. Ophelia is easily the shadiest member of our crew but out of necessity since society doesn't let her realize any of her ambitions except through shady means. Mr. Rose kinda skims on the top of this idea but doesn't really dive in, giving us a blooming romance between Ophelia and George but not really probing the gaps between George's expectations in a possible partner and Ophelia's desires. Basically what I'm saying is the characters have a really good setup in the main but not a lot is done with them (Lost opportunities…). To use a metaphor, there's a good skeleton here but not a lot of meat on these bones. Part of this could be the fact that it's the first book in a trilogy but I’ve got to grade off of what I got here.

The world-building in Dushara is much the same. There are a lot of good ideas and a solid framework that's intriguing and has a lot of hooks to draw you in but there's not a lot of meat on the bone. I like the idea that Dushara is some strange alternate earth where people and creatures from different parts of history and prehistory get dumped randomly to live or die. Although I do find the sheer static nature of those cultures strange. For example, why are Mongols still living like steppe raiders when you've put them in the hilliest and roughest parts of Spain? How is it that the people of New Britain and the Scirii can live next door to each other and not even learn the basics of each other language as Daniel declares? (What the actual fuck?  No.  They’ve been here a while.  There’s been contact.  That isn’t how humans work!) Seriously this flies in the face of historical human interactions. Look at the Romans' interactions with tribal peoples on their borders, there was constant trade and interaction between raids and wars. Same with the natives of North America and European invaders, there were periods of intermingling and trade, not just warfare. The Scirii should be just as willing to trade for New British cloth and metal pots as they are to attack and burn towns. The British would certainly happily accept furs, meats, and other goods.  For that matter given that Daniel mentions there are competing chiefs after 100 or so years, New Britain should have been drawn increasingly into tribal politics as making allies with the British might save a tribe from being overrun by its neighbors.  Not to mention after being there for 300 years!  I can also point at the Arabic city that is supposed to be the center of trade for the western Mediterranean but inhabited by an insular Arabic society that won't talk to foreigners (I… I can’t even.  Traders who don’t talk to foreigners?  What?). This is odd considering that we know from Ophelia's backstory that they're willing to marry outsiders! I mean Daniel who's known as an author even this far from home couldn't have gotten a letter of introduction or two from the traders he's helped out to give him an in?

Now there are answers to all these problems but they're never supplied in the book, likely because the characters are constantly moving so there's not a lot of time in the story to develop any single location or cultural group. This isn't a terrible thing but in that kind of situation, you need to develop your characters to balance it out. As it stands, with characters that aren't quite there yet and a setting that doesn't get any real deep development, the book ends up feeling like a series of short stories. They're good short stories and are at least united on a common theme of the group pushing against the boundaries of what is known to advance the agenda of Will and to a lesser extent Sobhuza under the direction of Daniel. In addition to this, Mr. Rose writes fairly good dialogue that sounds like things people would actually say to each other. He also writes incredibly well-constructed action scenes that are just great to read. He's also fairly good at avoiding the easy outs and pitfalls of pulps and adventuring stories, managing to even humanize a band of Neanderthals despite the characters never really being able to break the language barrier between them. In fact, I thought the meeting between our main characters and the Neanderthal band in the mountains of North Africa was a high point in the book! Displaying how Mr. Rose willing to write out scenes with attention to detail and even using non-verbal dialogue strengthened his stories immensely. Mr. Rose's skill as a writer raises the novel to an above-average standard but the characterization and world-building holds it back. So I got to give The City Beyond the Sands by Michael K Rose a C+.

I hope you enjoyed this week's review, this book was selected by our ever-wise patrons. If you would like a vote on what books are reviewed, what themes are pursued and etc, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you get a full vote for as little as a dollar a month! Next week, we'll be looking at the fantasy Thief by Matthew Colville (which was also voted for by some of our patrons!). Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders