Narcissus Is Dreaming

Pink Narcissus editor-in-chief Mambert falters with this peculiar short novel. Shape-shifting aliens called “Shapers” live in hiding among humans on a future Earth, few in number and highly sought after by intelligence agencies for covert operations. Shapers are assumed to be emotionless by humans and Shapers alike, until one Shaper named Dragon Cello begins to feel discomfiting love for a human partner. This kind of premise requires a deft hand and a deep and thorough understanding of one’s invented world; unfortunately, what little worldbuilding there is manages to contradict itself frequently. Shapers are uncomplicatedly compared, in their appearance and customs, to Native Americans, and awkwardly called “it” when not performing binary human gender. Stilted pacing and ineffective structure, and the use of clunking, cliché-ridden prose to depict paper-thin characters with no internal coherence or consistency, makes reading this book feel like walking through empty rooms full of half-assembled scaffolding. [em](May) [/em]