Rebirth by Dusk Peterson

CW: Torture, mention of rape

This series asks a question: What is fantasy? Because by one of the most common definitions, Rebirth is not fantasy at all. It can’t be.

There is absolutely no magic in it. None. Not a drop, not a spell, not a potion.

So, in what way is it fantasy? It does take place in a world explicitly not our own. Not an alternate history, but a complete secondary world. Does that make it fantasy?

It takes place in a world with certain anachronisms by our standards. Does that make it fantasy?

If one answers those questions with “No” one is left with another question: What is it, then?

In fact, Peterson answers that question in part in his author’s note, in which he calls it a “gothic.” Except there’s a problem with that too. Although bad things happen in this book and there’s a lot of fear – it’s literally set in a torture dungeon – I wouldn’t call it horror. And the definition of Gothic fiction is ‘an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present” (Wikipedia). Items one and three are present.

Item two is not. It is replaced with the fear of madness.

So, I suppose, I sort of have to call this horror, except it’s…not quite that either. What I come back to is that this feels like it should be fantasy and only after you come out of it do you wonder where the magic went.

And I haven’t even gotten to the actual story yet. One warning I would give here: This book is almost entirely devoid of women. It takes place in a culture in which male bisexuality is normalized and accepted and “love-mates” – male lovers – are normal and accepted. But as we don’t see any women at all, we know nothing about female homosexuality or bisexuality, or how marriages work – the major characters are sworn not to marry, although not to be celibate.

Which is to say there is a male/male love story…I hesitate to call it a romance…at the heart of the story. There’s also quite a bit of kink in there, in some really weird ways. This book is actually pretty twisted. As one would expect of a book about a literal torture dungeon.

(Except the torturers are actually trying to rescue people they think are innocent or don’t deserve to die for their crimes – the main character kills somebody, but in our terms would have presented a defense of temporary insanity – and commuting their sentences to eternal confinement in the dungeon. And that’s how they recruit their torturers! I did tell you it was twisted).

This isn’t a fun book. It’s the kind of book you “enjoy” in a very specific sense. I was struggling to think of what kind of reader to recommend it to, and the it occurred to me.

This is not dark romance, but it migh well appeal to dark romance readers. So, there you have it.