I would like to thank Francesca from Luna Press Publishing for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Luna Press Publishing

Published – 7/2

Price – £8.99 paperback £3.19 Kindle eBook

After falling out with her brothers, Samaki the goddess of water flees to Earth where she must mask her trace by splitting into a quadruplet of magi.

A quadruplet is perfect, but all things are never equal. Dissonance arises when the magus Umozi breaks the quadruplet.

Only the newness of a child magus can restore balance and save a broken paradise-with the help of a goddess mother.

A dark fantasy of gods, magic and family-what happens when they break.

After falling out...

The novella is definitely back in fashion – fantasy and SF were for a long time the realm of the huge tomes, but stories don’t all need to be ten volume thousand page blockbusters. A story can be equally great in miniature form; the storyteller’s language; grasp of imagery can create an epic story in a much shorter tale and perhaps leave a much bigger impact. Opening this year’s Juna Press Novellas is the superb Broken Paradise by Eugen Bacon that crosses genres and times with skill; uses language with scalpel like precision to create a gorgeous epic tale of gods, magic and family.

It’s a story in three core movements. At the start we have the tale of Goddess Mother and her four children. Samaki is extremely talented but increasingly feels at odd with her mother and her three brothers. Their feuding reaches new and magical heights leading to Samaki battling them to stay alive and ultimately fleeing for survival. Bacon here in just a few pages creates a spellbinding tale of powerful immortals that meshes the language of science and nature with the power of magic to create something that feels suitably epic on a huge celestial scale and yet the tale of a family feud feeling very human.  The imagery here is very much not our world and hints at massive powers and the universe itself is the gods’ playground.

The second largest part of the tale focuses on a young child named Namulongu who lives in a submersible under the oceans. He mother Mae is seeking out her sister Azikiwe who has been captured by their more malevolent sister Umozi. All are skilled in spell-craft and now Mae is teaching Namulongu the same spells. Bacon again wraps what sounds a familiar fantasy tale plot in a different form it’s a future setting where we have machines t keep the family alive, messages sent by tv screens and yet also a place where a Sea Ghost guards Namulongu; an ocean filled with amazing and deadly creatures and combining it all Bacon’s use of language. We get to feel the energy of life on the ship; the power of nature and the emotional and physical battles this young family is navigating. There are scenes of love; parenting; loss and growing up that are a joy to read and savour on the page.

The final act of the tale combines these two storylines. We move again to a more epic god-filled storyline but a touch of humanity stays all the way through. Goddess Mother meets humans and the contrast with an earthy Australian makes for a fascinating scene where the Goddess Mother starts to decide to sort her family’s problems out. The tale indeed goes epic but also sows the seed for further discord and reminds us of the story’s title and suggests further strife lies ahead in Paradise; if Bacon ever wishes to tell us the next tale – I would be very happy to hear it.

Broken Paradise is a brilliant example of storytelling. Delivering a touch of the familiar but also the unusual be it using science, technology and the modern in a tale that feels at the same time as if it was a well known folktale. It really is a read to just enjoy the way the words in a sentence are created and savoured. It is indeed strongly recommended!