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Dessous Cocanha
- GenresFantasy
96 pages, Paperback
Published September 4, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 20, 2026
A Dream Within a Dream
I liked this novella with a bunch of colourful characters living on the Island Above (Cocanha) and the Island Below!
Lately, Mantone is growing distant from his usual ring of friends at the bar and co-workers at the harbour: his nights are plagued with a recurring nightmare in which he lives in a place located under the plane where Cocanha stands. Whereas Cocanha enjoys bountiful harvests and fish galore, basking under a radiant sun and free from storms, the Island Below is a curious twin town, with an identical topography to Cocanha, and yet a miserable place where fish people are merely surviving in a constant state of gloom caused by the quasi-absence of sunlight and the inexistence of the sea, replaced instead by dreary plains where ghosts are roaming, trying to lure the passer-by. Mantone, who navigates between the twin islands during his sleep can't stand this blatant injustice and try to gather people to fix it. Easier said than done, on an island where nearly everyone is content of their current conditions and cannot believe his ramblings.
I enjoyed the atmosphere developped for the (seemingly) radically opposite islands, the farcical puns, the delirious ghosts, the amusing dialogues and the final Peter Pan-esque confrontation near the conclusion of the story. I would have liked more development about the flocks of ghosts sprouting from a bizarre chasm lying at some distance from the Island Below and more details concerning the resolution taken by the ancestors on Cocanha, allowing the island Above to access a cornucopia of resources at the expense of their fishfolk counterparts. More "lore" about the portals between one world and the other. The short format allowed the author to plant exciting questions without fully adressing some. It is a decision that might suit some readers and leave others waiting for more.
It is what it is, and I advise those it might interest to read it with as little expectations as you can, rather experiencing it as you would a dream, with all its non sequiturs, loopy causality, revealing moments, and boundless majesty alike.
See also:
Sprague
Le Vin des morts
L'Arrache-Cœur
In Ficciones: Las Ruinas Circulares
The Shadow over Innsmouth; The Shadow Out of Time (HPL)
The Magic Mountain (Hans' dream during skying)
Martian Time-Slip (Manny's point of view)
Xeethra
I liked this novella with a bunch of colourful characters living on the Island Above (Cocanha) and the Island Below!
Lately, Mantone is growing distant from his usual ring of friends at the bar and co-workers at the harbour: his nights are plagued with a recurring nightmare in which he lives in a place located under the plane where Cocanha stands. Whereas Cocanha enjoys bountiful harvests and fish galore, basking under a radiant sun and free from storms, the Island Below is a curious twin town, with an identical topography to Cocanha, and yet a miserable place where fish people are merely surviving in a constant state of gloom caused by the quasi-absence of sunlight and the inexistence of the sea, replaced instead by dreary plains where ghosts are roaming, trying to lure the passer-by. Mantone, who navigates between the twin islands during his sleep can't stand this blatant injustice and try to gather people to fix it. Easier said than done, on an island where nearly everyone is content of their current conditions and cannot believe his ramblings.
I enjoyed the atmosphere developped for the (seemingly) radically opposite islands, the farcical puns, the delirious ghosts, the amusing dialogues and the final Peter Pan-esque confrontation near the conclusion of the story. I would have liked more development about the flocks of ghosts sprouting from a bizarre chasm lying at some distance from the Island Below and more details concerning the resolution taken by the ancestors on Cocanha, allowing the island Above to access a cornucopia of resources at the expense of their fishfolk counterparts. More "lore" about the portals between one world and the other. The short format allowed the author to plant exciting questions without fully adressing some. It is a decision that might suit some readers and leave others waiting for more.
It is what it is, and I advise those it might interest to read it with as little expectations as you can, rather experiencing it as you would a dream, with all its non sequiturs, loopy causality, revealing moments, and boundless majesty alike.
See also:
Sprague
Le Vin des morts
L'Arrache-Cœur
In Ficciones: Las Ruinas Circulares
The Shadow over Innsmouth; The Shadow Out of Time (HPL)
The Magic Mountain (Hans' dream during skying)
Martian Time-Slip (Manny's point of view)
Xeethra
Displaying 1 of 1 review