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BLAME! MASTER EDITION 2 by Tsutomu Nihei and Melissa Tanaka (Translator)
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Museum of Thieves: 09/21/24

Museum of Thieves

Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner (2010) is a middle grade apocalyptic urban fantasy set in an oppressive town known as Jewel. Goldie Roth like every child has worn a silver guardchain her entire life. Separation Day, the day when she is finally to be given autonomy, is canceled after an explosion. Goldie, at her personal breaking point decides its better to run away than continue to be forced to obey the Blessed Guardians.

The first chapter or so was a struggle and I'm not alone in that struggle having read reviews on Goodreads. The American publisher did us a disservice by allowing a moose head on the cover. By putting a North American animal on this cover one is put in the mindset of Puritanical fascism. One expects a middle grade version of The Handmaid's Tale or maybe The Crucible. This book isn't that but with the moose on the cover it's hard not to expect it.

Further confusing my understanding of the novel's starting point, or underlying metaphor, is the inclusion of what looked like oddly spelled German. It's not German, it's Dutch. Or at least, Dutch adjacent.

After two chapters I set the novel aside and looked up the author. I wanted to see what I was missing. And there it was: the author is Australian. She grew up in Launceston and now lives in Hobart. Jewel isn't in a New England colony. It's in a fantasy inspired Tasmania — originally discovered by the Dutch.

I've been to Launceston. I've been to Hobart. I lived in Preston for three months and attended school in Devonport. Once I knew to be picturing a Tasmanian inspired landscape everything clicked.

Tasmania was a penal colony. I've visited the gaols. Launceston is a low lying city with a huge dam and a river running near the city. It's a place that's seen the wars and hardships locked away behind the iron gate in the Museum of Dunt where Goldie finds safety and meets Toadspit.

The brizzlehound, last of its kind, is probably more Tasmanian wolf/tiger (Thylacine) than doberman as drawn in the American book. But the book is done up with illustrations aimed at American readers at the expense of the book's foundation.

Museum of Thieves is a middle grade deconstruction of the horrors that went into creating Australia's southern most state. It's a look at the death and destruction brought by colonizers. It acknowledges the way the poor were shipped to the other end of the world and left there to serve their sentence (for being in debt) and weren't given a way home afterwards.

And then the novel supposes, what if it didn't get better? What if the oppression continued and the people living there believed it was for their own good?

There's also a supernatural side to things. Like Nagspeak in Kate Milford's Greenglass House series or more recently the house in Puzzleheart, the Museum of Dunt is sentient and capable of reconfiguring itself. Both abilities stem from years of all the "bad" things being locked away to protect the citizens of Jewel.

Now that those in charge have decided to take even more power, the museum is threatening to release all those ills back onto Jewel. For better or worse, change is coming and Goldie, Toadspit and their adult companions might be the only ones to mitigate the impending disaster.

This novel though not American, does sit firmly on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Goldie and the other museum folk are marginalized travelers (66). They have been forced into hiding by those in charge. Their destination is uhoria (CC): protecting the future by understanding the past. Their route is through the maze (CC) — the changing landscape of the museum full of potentially deadly traps.

The second book is City of Lies (2011)

Five stars

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