The job search goes on, and continues to prove that the hiring experiences at nonprofits are always full of far more rigamarole and nonsense than private organizations. Today I finished The West Passage by Jared Pechacek.

The West Passage is a fantasy novel about a massive palace that encompasses the entirety of the state where the protagonists live and is ruled over by the godlike and somewhat tyrannical Ladies. The ancient Beast, the enemy of the Ladies, is threatening to rise again, as it has done in the past, which leaves our protagonists, Pell and Kew, youths of the Grey Tower, to try to raise the alarm.

I’m usually a fan of stories that throw you right into things, but The West Passage did leave me turned around for a while. I struggled to conceptualize what was being explained, and it’s definitely a book that asks a lot of your powers of visual imagination regarding the palace.

However, I loved the general creativity of this book. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fantasy novel so firmly and intentionally grounded in the medieval. A lot of Western fantasy is generically medieval/pseudo-medieval (a la the Ren Faire), but The West Passage clearly took time to more securely set itself in this era. The technology is not always strictly medieval, as this is a fantasy world with all manner of fantastical beasts and tools, but the medieval setting is far more than window dressing here. To cap off the mood, the book is peppered with charming medieval-style illustrations at the start of each chapter and separating each “book” within the novel, showing our protagonists on their adventure.

The West Passage is a story that asks a lot about the value of traditions. The realm of the Ladies is absolutely suffocated in traditions, and as the protagonists journey about the realm on their quests, they begin to see from entirely new perspectives the full impact of this unquestioned adherence to tradition.

At the same time, characters may find comfort and reassurance in familiar traditions, especially when things feel particularly dangerous or uncertain. There is also a discussion here about truth passed down through tradition, as well as who decides which version of a thing is the truth. This rings particularly powerfully in a story set in the medieval-style world of The West Passage, where information is so precious and hard to come by, and at times fiercely guarded by those who have it. It is certainly a reminder of how much scarier and unknown the world was when it was harder for people to share information amongst each other.

In terms of the fantasy aspect, The West Passage delighted me at every turn with its darkly whimsical world where “miracles” pile up in disused hallways, their initial functions forgotten and their remaining functions potentially quite dangerous; where the people are often as not described as characters in a medieval painting—a rabbit the size of a person with a cloak and doctor’s bag, a man with a trout’s head, a girl with branches for hair; where the rulers barely resemble human beings and whose affection may prove just as hazardous as their ill will.  

The impact of the Ladies was awesome to watch. These pseudo-gods obviously exist on an entirely different scale than their human subjects, and even a Lady’s mere physical presence can have an impact on the people around her. In general they are not malicious towards their subjects, but they also seem unable to understand at all how those subjects exist in the world, and as such even a Lady’s best intentions can be harmful. Similarly, the humans of this world are baffled, awed, and terrified by the Ladies, equally unable to conceive of the world which the Ladies experience.

I really enjoyed the protagonists, Pell in particular. She’s a fascinating example of a young woman raised in a narrow world in a strict tradition who places great value on doing things the “right” way—but who begins to see with greater perspective that sometimes there are more important things than following the rules.

Overall, this was a really fun read, I’m very glad I picked it up. I would definitely read more set in this world by this author (this is a newer book, published 2024), but I also feel quite satisfied with the story we got. I will certainly keep this author in mind for future fantasy, as I imagine that his future works will be just as engaging.