Dust City (review)

Remember that brutal murder of a little girl and her grandmother by a bloodthirsty wolf? Well, it was a bit more complicated than you might think: the wolf was a dust runner for the nixie mafia that controlled the whole city, and he had discovered that the missing fairies who used to provide the magical dust might have been captured by the company that manufactures the addictive synthetic dust now used by most of the population, "hominid" (goblins, giants, elves, humans) and animalia alike. That wolf had a son, Henry, and when Henry realizes his dad may have been set up, he escapes from the St. Remus Home for Wayward Youth and joins his father's old dust-running gang to investigate. What follows is a dark, trippy fractured-fairy-tale adventure complete with beanstalks, Disney princess cameos, and above all longing for a world in which dreams come true. Weston's dystopian fantasy landscape is gritty and spooky, adding a modern twist to fairy-tale imagery and layering urban and folkloric violence atop each other to create an eerie, nightmarish resonance. Fairydust draws on the power of destiny, and that destiny is disturbingly ambiguous for animals like Henry, who talk and read and bite and claw and exist in an unsettling twilight zone between civilized aspirations and animal instincts. This is a departure from slyer, more satirical folktale updatings, offering instead an unremittingly bleak view of human—er, hominid—nature, but those who like their fairy tales dark and disturbing will appreciate Weston's fresh voice, engaging characters, and fractured world.