Tumbling After

by Paul Witcover

Jack and Jilly Doone are twelve-year-old twins bound by blood and forbidden secrets. Running wild through endless August afternoons, they explore the tributaries of Chesapeake Bay, spinning fantasies and sneaking cigarettes. But when a near-drowning awakens a strange power in Jack, the line between fantasy and reality blurs. . . .

Kestrel is an airie, one of five mutant races born in the conflict known as the Viral Wars. With one companion from each of the other races—a delph, a merm, a mander, and a boggle—he sets out to battle human enemies sworn to exterminate mutantkind.

Now the destinies of two worlds move toward a shocking convergence . . . and a climax of violent transfiguration.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

The author of Waking Beauty, Paul Witcover has also written a biography of Zora Neale Hurston and numerous short stories. He is the co-creator, with Elizabeth Hand, of the cult comic book series Anima and has served as the curator of the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series. His work has also appeared on HBO. He lives and writes in New York City.

Reviews

[fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually read this book when I was about fourteen.. At fourteen, it was mesmerizing. Almost a decade later, it still is. I just dug it out of storage and had to reread it immediately.

There are a very few books that, when read, seem to remain with you in the back of your head. They color your thinking and set a haze between you and reality for a good long while. It's almost like being drugged, or being in a trance state. Is this just me? Anyways, this was one of those books that did this to me. It's like once one falls into Witcover's trance-like, mesmerizing writing, it's impossible to escape.

The story itself is creative, a masterful conflation of two very different yet parallel storylines running side by side and slowly drawing closer towards the inevitably disturbing conclusion.

[Cheyenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of really interesting concepts, but unfortunately, it failed to pull them all together into one cohesive story, at least in my mind. The book tells two stories: the first is the tale of a little boy experiencing shifts in reality, and the second is the tale of the characters he and his sister are playing in Mutes & Norms (their version of D&D). However, the two stories barely relate to one another at all; in fact, though it's never explicitly stated, it feels as though the story of the fantastical characters diverges from the campaign that the children would be playing and goes off on its own tangent toward the end.

Of course, I also have thoughts on each story individually, so I will go through them one at a time.

The "realistic" story of Jack and his twin sister Jilly was the more compelling of the two for me. I enjoyed reading about the twins' relationship and their mind-reading abilities with each other, though I had wished there was somewhat less fighting between the two of them and more "us against the world" solidarity. This story focused on how Jack dealt with the perception that his realities were changing and that he was the only one that could remember the previous ones, which was definitely an interesting concept; I'd have been happy to have read an entire book only about this. However, these sections of the narration spent a lot of time circling around that idea of the changing realities, summing it up for the reader over and over every time new evidence was gathered; this got a little repetitive-feeling after a while. Meanwhile, other aspects of this paranormal element remained all too vague; Jack mentioned the sensation of a larger being reaching out for him, and this idea took him down a road of paranoia that eventually led to a very dark place. I wanted to see this paranoia more justified with actions. This larger entity never actually manipulated anything or in any other way proved itself to be real. It was only ever observed as a feeling Jack had, and that wasn't enough for me considering that feeling led him to killing his family. He never once even questioned whether the large entity was actually real or not. For him to take that kind of extreme action, I wanted him to see proof it existed and was doing bad things to him, even if the proof would look questionable to anyone but him.

The fantasy story was the harder sell for me. It follows Kestral, an airie (bird-like mutant), as he embarks on his coming-of-age adventure with members of the four other existing mutant types in this world. The main reason I didn't connect with this story as well was because the world-building was confusing and scattered. The first chapter or so of Kestral's perspective was hard to follow because it was so steeped in a culture I didn't yet understand, and while I read a lot of speculative fiction and thus have relatively high patience for that sort of thing, I felt even more frustrated when the facts explained to me remained still somewhat arcane and confusing. I had particular trouble with the concept of "invirting," which was explained in one way but soon seemed to cease following those specific rules. Perhaps it did follow rules, and those rules may have been very clear in the author's mind, but they weren't in mine. Invirting almost just seemed like the hand-wavey way to explain away plot twists--and boy, were there plot twists. Too many, in my book, for the last third of this story seemed to just go off on a tangent that felt relatively unrelated to the rest. By the ending, I really wasn't feeling the significance that I knew I was intended to feel.

Another problem I had with Kestral's culture was that the world-building felt thematically scattered. Largely, his world revolved around a religion based on odds and dice, which was clever considering it was meant to be the world of a tabletop RPG. However, part of that religion also incorporated "sutures," which were lines in their holy book that came with accompanying incision lines which everyone carved into their own flesh during their worship. This aspect of the religion seemed completely disconnected from the rest of the religion itself as well as from the themes of the rest of the book, and I couldn't understand why it was included. There was also a lot of high-tech gadgetry in this world, which I was okay with to an extent but which I think could have used more space to develop.

In the end, I think that both of these stories would have individually made good books if given the time and space to be properly developed. I'd have loved the story of Jack to be turned in a paranormal and/or psychological thriller, and the story of Kestral could have made a good fantasy or sci-fi had all the relevant elements been focused on from the beginning. However, I don't think they contribute to each other enough to justify coexisting in one book, at least in this state, and the need for the two of them to share space also seems to have taken away from their individual development.

[Mykala Constant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t even know if this book deserves the two stars...
Let me just start with a warning of it has 2 incestual relationships including minors in the book and not in the “fantasy part” in the “real-world” part.

Yes that may be a spoiler but honestly I would’ve liked to know that before I picked up this book as I wouldn’t have read it. However I greatly enjoyed the fantasy part of the book with Kestrel and feel like the book would have been way better if the Jack part wasn’t included. The ending left something to be desired and I don’t feel as though it made any sense as to the reasoning for why things happened that did. I was greatly disappointed and feel as though the author has such a fantastic imagination that was wasted.

[John Gastil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story blending a real childhood with a fantasy game that draws in its players. Full of surprises and memorable scenes, a great read.

[Sammy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, okay, um... what? Yeah, I just finished this book and it was all right to say the least but it was also really confusing. If you're a reader of comic books this may be a book you'll enjoy because it really had a comic book feel to it. Now that I think of it this book would have been so much better and easier to understand if it were a graphic novel.

This book was Flowers in the Attic meets Danielle Steel/Hustler meets Lord of the Rings meets Matrix. For real. If you can't even wrap your head around that concept you probably will explode trying to read the book. It's probably also not the most appropriate to read as a bedtime story to your kids.

I was reading from an advanced reader edition so I'm going to comment on typos, spelling and grammar errors, but those were the only major flaw I found in the writing of the book. Witcover seems to have a very firm grasp of the English language, using it beautifully throughout the novel. Though sometimes it appeared he was showing off how mamy Scrabble-winning words he knew.

One of the biggest problems was that practically the whole novel was exposition. Most of it explaining the world of Kestrel and the mutes. Even then some of the explanations were so confusing it wouldn't even help to read it over again. There never really seemed to be any story, and when there was it was overshadowed by different things being told in order for the story to make sense.

Another major problem I had was that the two seperate stories being told didn't appear to have any solid connection between the two, at least none that seemed reasonable. And by the end of Jack's story I was lost. If you've read this book and are looking to me to try and explain why Jack did what he did in the end, you're looking at the wrong person.

Overall the book only had the writing going for it. The characters, the story, most everything else about the book just wasn't that great. There's a bunch of other things I could criticize about the book, but why beat a dead horse. Let me just reiterate that I think this would make a really good comic book series, the drawings would help make things a lot clearer.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Witcover's second novel (1997's Waking Beauty is his first) succeeds at all levels. It's an ingenious coming-of-age story, a technological nightmare, and a comment on dystopia, game-playing, sexual awakening, and multiple realities. Though it hints of Philip K. Dick and other SF writers, Tumbling After is wholly original. Set in parallel universes, the novel boasts compelling settings and believable characters whose fates slowly merge. Witcover, who writes with authority and elegance, also mines psychological undertones, including the twins' sexual tensions. SF fans should not miss Tumbling After; it will "repay thoughtful readers looking for something beyond the usual trite and overworked trappings of much fantasy" (SciFi.com).

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great concept, and it turned out to feel like such a waste of my reading time. I only finished it because I wanted to know how the storyline worked itself out.

I had a hard time figuring out just what I didn't like about this. I think it was that none of the kinds of conflict that make a story have depth felt like they were developed in ways that felt... deep. It was all surface, even when it was really well explained. The two main storyline characters (Jack and Kestral) each had internal conflicts within themselves, between themselves and their closest acquaintances, and between themselves and the larger world. But somehow I never really CARED.

The concepts were really interesting and the twists highly unexpected (I liked those a *lot*), but it wasn't enough to make me care about Jack or Kestral. Which is a bummer. I wanted to love this.

[Catriona · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me, like several others here, I only finished this book to find out what happens. Yes, the writing is pretty good, the concepts are potentially fascinating, but the story never grabbed my interest or my imagination. Wasn't one I'd ever recommend to a fellow reader, even a hard core fantasy friend...too bad.

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very neat book. Very well-written and intererting, once you get a bit into it. The ending is twisty and I still need to figure it out.

[Chellopurin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.