E-book

English language

Published Jan. 7, 2019 by Tom Doherty Associates.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-9928-1
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4 stars (13 reviews)

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

3 editions

Review of 'In an Absent Dream' on 'GoodReads'

4 stars

There's an interesting take on modern economics in here. Young Lundy goes through the magic portal and arrives in the "Goblin Market" and the next decade of her life is consumed by the peculiar economic system they've got in the market.

Mild spoilers follow.

Everything one receives in the market comes at a cost. This includes finding a place to sleep for the night, having a glass of water, a bit of food, or just enjoying a warm bath. The cost is always referred to as "fair value" but that's on a sliding scale depending on how desperate you are. For the characters in the story this usually ends up being taken on as debt, and people in the Goblin Market who don't pay their debts your are magically disfigured, part by part, into a freakish bird thing. At first, our protagonist wonders how people let this disfigurement happen to …

Review of 'In an Absent Dream' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

There's a strange calm in already knowing how a story ends. In An Absent Dream is filled with sadness and wonder, too-clever bargains and barely-survived scrapes. Lessons of friendship, loss, fair value, and the weight of promises. Welcome to the Goblin Market. 

This focuses on someone whom we met earlier in the series as far as the reader is concerned, but in her own timeline she is barely getting started. This creates a sense of tragedy and wonder all tangled together as we slowly learn the reason for the bargain waiting in the end of the story. The pacing is very well handled, skipping what would only bog the story down, lingering on her indecision just enough to make the reader understand what would drive here to her eventual choice. I love Moon's wildness contrasting Lundy's steady attention and determination. 

The story is great, I like this version of the …

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