Saturnalia by Stephanie Feldman
Publisher – Unnamed Press
Published – Out Now
Price - £19.99 hardback (import)
The Saturnalia carnival marks three years since Nina walked away from Philadelphia's elite Saturn Club--with its genteel debauchery, arcane pecking order, and winking interest in alchemy and the occult. In doing so, she abandoned her closest friends and her chance to climb the social ladder. Since then, she's eked out a living by telling fortunes with her Saturn Club tarot deck, a solemn initiation gift that Nina always considered a gag but has turned out to be more useful than she could have ever imagined.
For most, the Saturnalia carnival marks a brief winter reprieve for the beleaguered people of the historic city, which is being eroded by extreme weather, a collapsing economy, and feverish summers--whose disease carrying mosquitos are perhaps the only thing one can count on. Like Thanksgiving or Halloween, Saturnalia has become a purely American holiday despite its pagan roots; and nearly everyone, rich or poor, forgets their troubles for a moment.
For Nina, Saturnalia is simply a cruel reminder of the night that changed everything for her. But when she gets a chance call from Max, one of the Saturn Club's best-connected members and her last remaining friend, the favor he asks will plunge her back into the Club's wild solstice masquerade, on a mysterious errand she cannot say no to.
Tonight, Nina will put on a dress of blackest black, and attend the biggest party of the year. Before it's over, she will discover secret societies battling for power in an increasingly precarious world and become custodian of a horrifying secret--and the target of a mysterious hunter. As Nina runs across an alternate Philadelphia balanced on a knife's edge between celebration and catastrophe, through parades, worship houses, museums, hidden mansions, and the place she once called home, she's forced to confront her past in order to take charge of her own--and perhaps everyone's--future.
A lot of stories are about the pursuit of power. That can be a quest for a magical artefact; the power of science or the power sometimes to take control of events. As many of us start young reading perhaps wondering what it would be like to have some control over the world will appeal but power has a darker side. A desire for it can take you over. Become all-consuming and mean those you once loved get heart. In Stephanie Feldman’s haunting and powerful novel Saturnalia we get a story where the everyday horrors of the world make people join secret societies all in the hope they learn enough to make themselves untouchable but for one young woman a very high price gets paid.
Nina lives in near future Philadelphia. The weather is dangerous; summers are feverish; tornados wreck destruction and summers bring fever. As people feel helpless, they have turned to the beliefs of the older time – magic, gods and divination. For many these gods lead to cults where knowing people helps keep you have foot on the ladder to power. Nina though sits outside all of this now – a simple tarot card reader trying to make ends meet which is getting harder. But then an old friend offers a not inconsiderable sum for her to retrieve an item at the Saturn Club. The club that Nina once belonged to; invested her time and friendships in and left three years ago angry, hurt and alone. Going back risks her meeting her once closest friends who now hate her; but it also risks death and the truth finally coming out. The end of year is Saturnalia the festival of all the gods and a price will be needed to be paid.
This short novel is spellbinding in how it creates a unique world that crosses boundaries with future dystopia, fantasy and horror. It takes a few scenes to gently to explain the fascinating nightmare of a world it is set and initially we just appear to be in a near future heist tale set in this city where everything feels on the verge of collapse and everyone desperate for some form of escape or power over uncontrollable events. There is a feeling of the decadent end times with everyone joining some form of ancient god cult from Saturn, Pan or Osiris in an effort to be snarling at the dying of the light but also to make connections and hopefully progress. Nina is our narrator and carefully explains enough of the world to understand it and we can tell despite her protestations Nina loved being part of it as a recruit working her way up the ranks along with her best friends East and Amparo. This is a world where the shadows are long and hide many misdeeds, where people indulge in humiliating party games and power plays. If Dark Academia is about how people use education to gain footholds in the upper classes, this is the tale of what happens when you’re a bit older and a bit more desperate but also a world where magic is possible.
From the hint that fortunate telling is real when Nina gets to the Saturn Club as well as her facing her past friends we also get some strange creepy reveals. A mysterious masked figure starts to follow her throughout the story and when Nina finds her friend’s treasure she is surprised to find it a power and unusual object that makes little sense and hints at greater magics that can be performed. At the same time Nina then discovers within the Saturn Club are games within games and many of the rich and powerful want what Nina has back at any cost. The rest of the novel takes us across Saturnalia night a night where many dangers can come out from bike gangs to graveyard death cults but the biggest danger all come from Nina’s old Saturn Clubmates. Here is a world where we find everyone has a price to pay if you want help and even then they still may not be trusted.
So far this sounds a straightforward magical object heist tale but for me where Saturnalia stands out in myriad ways is the power of the relationships we find. Nina’s bond with East was on the borderline of boyfriend girlfriend but never uttered and Amparo was pretty much her sister in how they saw the world and yet now those bonds are tattered. Feldman keeps us getting as to what happened three years ago but what keeps this story pulsing throughout is the idea that you can have friends who once knew you inside out and one day they become your enemies or prepared to cast you off for their own ambitions. The prize is power, but we find a world where violence and sexual assault can go alongside and as the story develops so does our understanding of Nina and her 24/7 huge armour plating she uses to keep her far away from the world. This is a story filled with a dangerous atmosphere and strained relationships but its not doing it for basic soap opera dramatics but to explore more adult themes and what the repercussions of this desire for power is. The subjects are handled sensitively but brutally honest and bring us fully behind Nina’s survival. Which does feel in doubt as this story is powerfully creepy too.
The initial Last Days of Rime vibe suggests that the core danger is people being selfish, but the latter half of the story brings in ancient magic; powerful spirits and malevolent forces you do not want to capture you. Nina moves from undercover thief to being the pursued and the entity we eventually meet is relentless and quite simply deadly if you’re in the wrong place. Feldman uses this strange night of Saturnalia where people dress up as their gods and praise their patrons with sacrifices; to build a world that feels like a late night masquerade gone too far and may hide some real supernatural figures amongst the crowds. This tale has a feeling of dark power and malevolence that really impresses me and it never feels comfortable as to how things may be resolved right up until the end.
Saturnalia is a powerful haunting tale that keeps the reader on their toes as we try to guess the shape of the story. Its brutal on its characters and the world they live in and though for many we tend to not like their actions we do at least understand their need to survive in a decaying world that no longer cares. It does offer a slight feeling of potential hope by the end but there is always going to be a cost. Its hugely fascinating and fans of darker fantasy tales that play with myths should hunt this out. Strongly recommended!
