Title: Two Sides of the Coin: Knight of the Rising Star
Author: Malia Davidson
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Pages: 266
ISBN: 978-1504982610
Genre: Fiction /Fantasy
Reviewed by: Joe Kilgore
Pacific Book Review Star
Awarded to Books of Excellent Merit
Storytelling takes on a major dose of contraposition and even a bit of Yin & Yang in Malia Davidson’s surreal fantasy, Two Sides of the Coin. It combines vintage storytelling, both mythical and modern characters and a heaping dollop of suspension of disbelief as readers are swept into a tale that might bring to mind Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Author’s Court. While the literary conceit in both is similar, Davidson’s yarn encompasses issues of philosophical, physical and moral issues as well as those dimensions of conflicting mores that anchored Twain’s tale. Whether Davidson ascends to the pinnacles of literary greatness as did Mark Twain, most of us won’t live long enough to see, as only time and popularity makes those decisions. But readers can certainly enjoy and decide for themselves if this interesting blend of opposites will have legs beyond one’s initial consumption.
Steve and Shawn are two magazine reporters. While their devotion to their chosen profession is similar, they couldn’t be more different physically and behaviorally. Think of them as a bit like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger from Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. The two convince their editor that there might be a great story to be written about the many disappearances surrounding the famous Bermuda Triangle. He grants their request and soon they are boating their way to the infamous area. This is the point where realism takes a decided backseat to surrealism.
What they find near the mysterious confluence of waterways are two uncharted islands. One is seriously dark and foreboding. The other appears to be paradise personified. Knowing that both should be explored and chronicled, they flip a coin to see who gets which island. Steve gets The Island of Joy; while Shawn gets the one appropriately referred to as The Island of Despair. Once they are physically on their assigned islands, sequences start to play out as you might expect. Steve finds lush, beautiful scenery, calming sea breezes, and the wind-carried song of a beautiful maiden. Shawn finds howling winds, heavy rain, and one terrible situation after another. In fact, while covering the expedition of both adventurers, the majority of the author’s narrative focuses on Shawn’s trials and tribulations. There are many harrowing events, encompassing but definitely not limited to: getting caught in a bear trap; being put in the stocks; dueling with knife-wielding assassins; escaping on the back of a horse he doesn’t know how to ride; and hanging on for dear life as he flies through the air on the back of a bat-winged prince.
Davidson is a skilled writer who does a good job of mixing the thoughts and speech patterns of her medieval characters with the feelings and jargon of her modern day protagonists. She makes her central characters come to life with identifiably human foibles that will make readers root for them. Plus she tackles the emotional turmoil which goes on inside the mind of her players while they’re busy wrestling with very real problems in their seemingly unreal worlds.
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