Preamble
I picked up Peter Foote’s Molting Of A Queen when it was on sale a few weeks ago. Foote is a member of Genre Writers of Atlantic Canada, a kickass writer’s group from my neck of the woods. I previously read one of his novellas, Boulders Over The Bermuda Triangle, and find him to be quite a delightful author.
A note about my reviews: I consider myself an appreciator, not a critic. I know first-hand what goes into the creation of art – the blood, the sweat, the tears, the risk. I also know that art appreciation is subjective and lernt good what mama tell’t me – if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’m not a school marm grading a spelling test – I’m a reader who enjoys reading. If a book is entertaining, well-written, and I get absorbed into it, five out of five. I have gone as low as three stars – anything less than that and I will not review a book (chances are I DNFed anyway). Regardless, I wouldn’t even put a star rating system on my reviews but for the reality of storefronts like Amazon.
Take from that what you will.
Review – 5/5
I had a discussion with a writer on my podcast recently about the difference between literary and genre fiction. The line is a bit blurred, but part of me feels like its kind of a ‘you know it when you see it,’ which is an antiquated notion of fairness that I came across when reading some rather aged legal decisions in law school. Molting Of A Queen is decidedly genre fiction, and yet it deals with themes of what makes us human and atonement and forgiving one’s self, the ‘artistic’ stuff that people usually ascribe to literary fiction.
On its face, the story is kind of well-trodden in sci-fi: the protagonists accidentally enter a portal to an alien world, survive, and have to get back home before the portal closes, locking them forever on said alien world (because portals be like dat). It has a bit of a pulpy feel to it, like you’ve been here and seen this before. The setting is intriguing – a honeycomb tropical paradise with bee ant fellers what seems to be pulled out of the world of Elden Ring (maybe I’ve just recently logged too many hours of that addicting masterpiece of game design).
One of the differences between literary and genre fiction is how experimental literary tends to be. Genre fiction tends to be similarly structured – the build-up of tension and action and slight pressure release until the climax. Foote adheres closely to a plotting formula, following the story beats in perfect time. You can tell he’s done this more than once before. It’s very tight and well-crafted. From a technical perspective – I’ve gotta hand it to him.
And yet, the normal ending – the encounter with the ‘big bad’ – doesn’t occur. Instead, apart from the internal struggle with the protagonist’s past, it’s a rather heartwarming and cozy meeting between a likeable woman and the queen bee of an insectile alien world. Where I was expecting there to be the evil alien ‘boss,’ instead it’s more like our hero has tea with a friend, who asks her to stay for a sleepover, with zero of the adult connotations of a sleepover.
But no one can stay for a chaste sleepover in an alien world – ha! People have to go do human stuff, because they grow as a result of the intrigue of the story. Ain’t you never read a story before? Don’t you know the protagonists learn things about themselves and become more self-actualized as a result of their trials?
In many ways, it is genre fiction. And in some ways, it is not. It defies classification, like all stories. We like to do that – put labels on things and tuck them safely away on the shelf. Ram Dass once said that most of human life is spent reassuring each other that our clothing of identity is on straight, and perhaps that applies. Here’s a label: Molting Of A Queen is a story in its own right, and a damn fine one at that.
You can find it on Amazon here.