It's a long walk down the field, and while he treads the soft ground, everything is focused on him. The people. The cameras. The people behind the cameras, watching the match live. He can feel the pressure of their gazes: the men seated around him roughing their throats by screaming his name, the ones yelling in their local pub as their friend brings pints to the table.
The Game Weavers by Rebecca Zahabi (Zuntold Publishing) is an inspired mix of genres - YA fantasy/magical realism and dystopian fiction with LGBTQ+ themes.
Seo and Minjun are two brothers, Korean by birth, adopted by the British parents. Abandoned by their birth mother, they had to support each other from an early age.
There is a special bond between the brothers, who had nobody but each other to rely on through their childhood in the orphanage, and were later adopted by Papa who only sees them as valuable money-spinning tools and not people to love and take care of.
"Seo swore he would never leave Minjun's side, that he would hang on to him with both hands, that he would tie himself to his brother, that he would howl and break tables and that theyw ould never, ever succeed in separating them... They were never separated, but the shadow of that threat hung over them".
Minjun grows up in the shadow of his superstar brother. Minjun is an endearing child, who loves his big brother.
Seo is a gifted weaver. This is where the magical realism is at its best in the novel. Weaving is the futuristic game of great creativity and possibilities. The scenes of Twine battles are exceptionally detailed and will appeal to anyone who enjoys artistic side of gaming. The creatures appearing on the battlefield are fantastical - they made me think of the compound animals and demi-humans from Hieronymus Bosch's artwork.
Twine is woven via the fingertips of players. This game is taxing on the players' health, and they retire from the big game while still very young.
"He spreads out his hands. They glow yellow, then orange. threads emerge from underneath his nails, shining out of the skin. They weave themselves together, the fingers knitting their light-made lace until the threads form a fabric heading out of the glass panes and towards the field. They cross the glass without so much as a shudder. Seo crafts his land".
Seo is intuitive, sharing the thoughts and moods of his pawns (Twine creations). "Pawns don't think. They don't articulate complex ideas like those. But they feel deep, primitive sensations - and Seo senses it too, the greatness of space above his head, the tug upwards. And he can put words on it. He can understand it in a way they don't..."
Seo is at first a tragic character, he's hiding his sexuality and thus denies his identity, as his chances of a professional weaver would dwindle drastically if he comes out as gay. He knows how cruel and hostile the world of Twine is to anyone who doesn't conform.
And when he's forced to come out, he drops down from his god-like position to the one, where he's derided and mocked even by his former fans. The scenes of jeering and taunts are painful to read.
The world described in the novel is a dystopian present, where the society has taken a step backwards in regards to the LGBTQ+ rights.
Twine is Seo's world, and to keep his fans at bay, he announces that he is bi. He is hiding his true feelings for Jack, from everyone around him, and even from himself. Only Minjun and Jack's flatmate know about his visits to Seo's flat.
Seo is socially awkward, and while his understanding of the pawns is intuitive, he finds the real life relationships difficult to decipher. Jack is torn between caring for Seo and being angry with him. For him, his lover is "computer-like. Seo's a drone, that's what he is, manipulated at a distance by someone who has no understanding of how humans are supposed to work..."
With the biggest match of his career ahead of him, Seo has to find his place in the world. Will he reveal the secret which could change everything?
As a book blogger, I often find that I might be reading books on a certain topic/theme in a close succession by pure accident (several books that I'm going to review soon are all about art and mysterious paintings). LGBTQ fiction is not a genre I read often, but in the last month, I finished two books, where the main protagonist is exploring their sexuality (this was one of the plotlines in a wonderfully creative Bjørn Larssen's Children) and is also displaying characteristics of higher functioning autism.
The Game Weavers is an exploration of self-identity and accepting who you really are.
The book will appeal to the fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent.
Many thanks to Rebecca Zahabi and ZunTold for my ARC!
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