Soulworm

Soulworm
by Edward Willett
Published by Shadowpaw Press Reprise
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$22.99 ISBN 9781989398807

I missed it the first time, but what’s old is new again—Aurora Award-winning author Edward Willett’s YA fantasy novel, Soulworm, has been auspiciously re-released. What a treat to read the book that launched the prolific Regina writer’s impressive career in 1997, especially as I’ve so enjoyed his subsequent books. And prolific is an understatement: the heralded author, publisher, podcaster, actor and singer has written more than sixty books, including science fiction and nonfiction titles.

The opening scene of Willett’s new and revised edition immediately pulled this reader in: it’s 1984, near Weyburn, SK, and seven paragraphs into the story, three teens are in a horrific car accident. After the “car rolled six times in a welter of mud and water, tortured metal, and breaking glass,” it landed upright, and, hauntingly, Van Halen was still “blasting, the thump of the bass like a club pounding the ground.” Exceptional writing. And that’s what one can expect from this seasoned writer, all the way through this adrenaline-charged tale.

The story’s simultaneously old-school otherworldly—complete with torches, a tower and drawbridge—and rooted in Earthly details. Sixteen-year-old Liothel is an “Acolyte” in female-only Wardfast Mykia. It’s 2967. She was orphaned as a baby and thus has never known a true, loving family, though she’s surrounded by other Acolytes, Warders (those who’ve Manifested their Talent(s) of “Detection” …. and/or “Exorcism”), “Sentinels” and her beloved chief tutor, aging Jara.

Liothel’s a late-bloomer: she wonders if she will ever Manifest a Talent, necessary for “[contributing] directly to Mykia’s most important work, the continuing battle against the soulworms.” The eponymous “evil” soulworms “live to eat and reproduce … they thrive on negative emotions … infiltrate their victims, influence their actions …. Feed, and grow; and then, when the time is right, in a paroxysm of physical violence, they spawn … and the cycle repeats.” Creator forbid one ever finds its way to “violent” Earth, the “parallel world,” through the hole that’s “hidden, guarded, and watched,” because it would thrive in the here and now. Lionel’s daily life is “unchanging,” apart from witnessing the odd exorcism, but soon there’s a new teenaged Acolyte (and new roommate) in Mykia. Before we return to Weyburn, we’re introduced to Kalia—and Liothel’s instantly wary of the battered refugee.

Most of the story does take place in the “real” world. I won’t reveal the connection, but will tell you that on Earth, accident survivors and former best friends Maribeth and Christine are no longer themselves. After waking from a two-month coma, Maribeth suffers “moments of oddness,” and the television “[makes] her pulse race.” Christine’s flipped her proverbial lid, and heads up a new gang called the “Ice Devils.” Fortunately, new student Adam, becomes Maribeth’s ally … and more.

Willett’s rich imagination and his almost magical ability to create stories that simultaneously straddle the world we know—fluorescent lights, football, and all— and the unique one he authentically creates is the reason he’s gained so many fans, and I am surely among them.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM