QC

First things first: yes, Lee Arthur Chane, c’est moi, Edward Willett. The pseudonym (a marketing decision by my publisher, DAW Books in New York, because this book marks my move into fantasy from science fiction) is actually the middle names of my two older brothers and myself.

If you’re not familiar with the term “fantasy novel,” well, The Lord of the Rings would be the classic example. Or you might have seen A Game of Thrones on HBO, based on George R.R. Martin’s epic series. Essentially, fantasy novels take place in mythical lands, and typically involve magical or supernatural elements.

In Magebane, the mythical land is the Kingdom of Evrenfels, ruled by a powerful nobility known as the MageLords, because they can use magic. They rule with an iron fist over the Commoners, who have no magic.

But the MageLords haven’t always lived in Evrenfels. Eight centuries ago they were chased out of their old kingdom by a Commoner revolt, led by something or someone called the Magebane that rendered their magic useless. They fled to the far side of the world, dragging some Commoners with them, and hid themselves away behind an impenetrable magical barrier. But now various MageLords would like to remove that barrier, each for his or her own reason, a new Magebane has arisen…and there are, bubbling up from the increasingly technological advanced Commoners the MageLords oppress, new rumors of rebellion.

What no one in Evrenfels realizes is that the Commoners outside the kingdom, for whom the MageLords are nothing but myth, have explored the world right up to the Great Barrier itself, which they see as a baffling scientific anomaly. Their technology has advanced even further than that of the Commoners in Evrenfels: so far, in fact, that one day a young man crash-lands in the kingdom aboard an experimental airship that has just flown over the Barrier…and throws everyone’s schemes into turmoil.

Though a land of magic and MageLords may seem far removed from mundane Saskatchewan, local readers will actually find themselves very much at home in Evrenfels, a land cold in winter and hot in summer, largely prairie in the south, with lakes and forests in the north. They may find themselves even more at home in the capital city of New Coroba, where the King rules from a white stone palace (complete with equestrian statue in the formal gardens out front) set in a park on the southern shore of a man-made lake: albeit it a lake and park and palace protected from winter’s wrath by a magical dome that makes it always spring. (OK, yes, that was pure wish-fulfillment on my part.)

Magebane came out in early October, and reviewers have been kind: in fact, Publishers Weekly calls it “spectacular,” and says, “Double and triple crosses, fast-paced action, and powerful moral conviction will have readers hanging on every word.”

The review begins:

I confess that I went into the opening night performance of Marion Bridge at Globe Theatre feeling skeptical.

The premise, after all, sounds like the set-up to a joke: “A nun, an actress and a soap-opera addict walk into a kitchen …”

Not only that, the fact the three are sisters home together — in Cape Breton, no less — for the first time in years because their mother is dying made me fear I faced a turgid evening of stereotypical CanLit dysfunctional-family angst.

But thanks to Daniel MacIvor’s sharp writing, unexpected story twists, and above all top-notch performances, Marion Bridge won me over.

It begins:

What could be better than a wonderful Christmas brunch onstage at the Conexus Arts Centre?

How about a wonderful Christmas brunch followed by a performance by the South Saskatchewan Youth Orchestra?

That’s exactly the hard-to-imagine-a-better-than event scheduled for this Sunday. A silent auction and food kick off the event at 11 a.m., with the concert to follow. Conductor Alan Denike will lead the 45-member orchestra, made up of players whose ages range from 12 to their early 20s, in Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite, selections from Carmen by Georges Bizet, and Leroy Anderson’s Christmas Festival, before finishing up with sing-along carols.

For Ruth Smillie, artistic director of Globe Theatre, the key to Globe’s upcoming production of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale of Peter Pan is that children don’t differentiate between reality and make-believe the way adults to.

Smillie, who is directing the production, recalls that this past summer she overheard a group of boys walking up and down the street, “very engaged in what they were doing,” and overheard them say, “We have to save the president,” with “enormous concern and conviction.”

It’s that kind of immersion in the world of make-believe that Smillie hopes Globe’s Peter Pan will provide to people of all ages.