# Frank Reviews: The Unimaginable Road, by Eddie Drueding  (Finally)



## M. LeRenard (Aug 20, 2012)

Hey, it's been a while.  So today I'm reviewing a little book called _The Unimaginable Road_, by Eddie Drueding.  This is the first in a series of books about a place called Arraborough, a town in a forest built by people (or rather, animals) who wanted to just get away from it all and live in peace.  According to the author's bio, it started as first a comic strip, then as a ton of comic books, and finally as this series of novels, so this story has been going on for 30 years in some form or another and just recently made it to the book format.  I'd never heard of it before the author approached me personally and asked me to read it some number of months ago, so here I am now.

Now, this book perplexed me at first.  It's written in a very up-front, no-nonsense style.  It's present tense, the language is very fairytale-esque, and the characters all have easy names like Slither Snake and Wild Boar (though some get more creative as the cast expands, of course).  It starts off with a blunt description of an elliptical patch of forest, giving dimensions and describing where it can be found.  In truth, the first few pages are a little off-putting, because you end up having pretty much NO IDEA what this book is going to be like.  But as I started reading it, rather than being discouraged, I was intrigued, because despite all that strange bluntness, there's enough creative juice thrown in there that you immediately recognize the author is really going somewhere with all this, and you should just be patient and keep reading.
The whole book unfolds like this.  It starts off slow, introducing locations and characters, giving people names, getting them all together.  The original six arbitrarily decide to settle this place where they all just happened to sit down one night and start a fire, and they start building a town there for apparently no reason.  But in the background, there's a mystery brewing; there's this strange squirrel inhabiting the place already, who acts like a child but has this mystical aura about him, seems to know things he shouldn't.  They start building their town, and a strange cat shows up with blue ears, who apparently has a knack for predicting the future.  There's a system of caves nearby that no one is allowed to go in, and there's a house built out of stone called Rockhouse that only seems to allow certain people inside.  And in the meantime, there's all these animals walking around (quite a diverse set; a chicken, some pigs, a cat, an echidna, an anteater, a pangolin, and so on and so forth), but there's mention of a war going on, they drive cars, they build cities, they have reporters and newspapers and phones and mystery writers and all that, and none of them believe in magic.  It becomes obvious right away that nothing about any of this is really arbitrary after all.  It's one of those books where you know the author has a master plan, but you don't have any clue yet what it is.  That's what keeps you reading.
The atmosphere completely makes this book.  The atmosphere and the characters, I should say.  There's a huge cast, and it's a little tough to remember everybody, but they all get used enough and they all have distinct enough personalities that you don't end up having to work to memorize who's who, and they all inhabit this really strange, interesting world that's only revealed bit by bit as the story goes on.  The pacing is perfect; there's not a terribly huge amount that goes on during the course of the narrative, but it just keeps dragging you into it with these little hints, little revelations here and there about all the mysteries brought up in the first few pages.  Events gets sprinkled around at just the right times to keep you from getting bored, too.  New people come in and bring conflict, tensions rise and fall, characters might go missing only to turn up right at the climax.  And despite the fairytale-like storytelling, it's not a kids' book by any stretch of the imagination.  This is all a fantastical, peaceful place with a dark, dark past.  Shit goes down in this book, and when it does it hits pretty hard and you really feel it in your gut.

I don't have anything really negative to say about it, in the end.  Not sure what genre to classify it as (it's fantasy, mostly, but there are some hints that it's got sci-fi elements, too), but whatever it is, it's a really great read, and I'd totally recommend it to... well, pretty much to whoever.  I think it could appeal to a lot of people with a wide variety of tastes.  You can buy the paperback version either at Amazon or straight from the publisher, Melange Books (I'm starting to appreciate this publisher; they're small, but all four books I've read from them have been great).  So by all means, go buy it and read it yourself.


Next review... I don't know!  I'll leave it a mystery, or if people want to recommend something, let me know.


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## Pimlico (Aug 20, 2012)

Thanks, Frank, very thoughtful and insightful review.

Anyone reading this is also welcome to a free pdf copy of the novel. Email me at EddieDrueding@hotmail.com

I may charge for book two though


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 21, 2012)

No problem!  Thanks for introducing me to your book.


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