Indigara

by Tanith Lee

Jet and her robot dog, Otis, have been taken to their planet's film capital, Ollywood, and are soon catapulted into the unplumbed underworld that lurks below the studios and lots. Here lies the beautiful and sinister otherwhere of Indigara, which has spontaneously generated from the sets, costumes, models, and actual celluloid of rejected pilot fantasy and SF movies that never got made into series. Even while girl and dog try to survive the dangers and terrors below, their Indigaran mirror images have replaced them, and are running amok in the real world above . . .

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Futuristic, Fiction, Audiobook, Cyberpunk

197 pages, Hardcover

First published October 18, 2007

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Nicholas Perez]

Found a copy of this at Half-Price Books. I know it's considered one of Tanith Lee's lesser works, but since I got a copy I might as well read it.

[Magen - Inquiring Professional Dog Trainer · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars It's really hard to believe that this is the same author who wrote Companions on the Road. I loved that book, even though it was set up as a quest, and I'm not a big fan of quests. It was truly the complexity of the writing that made that story incredible. Plus, the characterization was phenomenal. Indigara read like it was written by a self published debut author, including numerous grammatical mistakes. In addition, the characters were completely flat and everything was told, not shown. The entire book was written in such simplistic terms that there were parts which were painful to read. The constant short sections broke up the flow of the book, especially when the point of view switched from first person accounts written by Jet and Otis to a 3rd person narrative. Lastly, the plot was uninteresting and full of holes. I was hoping the plot would save the book at some point, but instead it caused the book to end on a worse note than it started at.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written specifically for young girls, not old guys like me.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this YA novel, and I recommend it to anyone up for a vicarious adventure. It seemed a bit confusing, so it was an uncertain start for me. At first I was not certain about the other world that the heroine Jet lived in. When I figured it out in the first two chapters, I thought that this was a twist on Dorothy traveling from Kansas to the land "over the rainbow" with her dog, Toto. In "Indigara," Dorothy turns into a sassy, keen younger sister Jet whose most loyal companion is her dog Otis. Their adventures took them to danger, new companions (some of whom became friends), and a new appreciation for home. Again, this is how I took it, for I continually thought of "The Wizard of Oz" throughout.

I liked how Otis' perspective and comments were woven through the novel. Jet's loyal companion's insights help develop the storytelling, especially when they come into different worlds. In many ways, I would forget that she was in a different world altogether, which allows us to appreciate the characters in different walks of life. Her fears, choices, and decisions were relatable, and I cheered her on as she'd face her choices bravely. For me, this empathy is essential for successful YA literature.

There are just two changes I personally would like, so I'm going to try to find a fan-page or a conversation group for more development (I'm happy to receive recommendations from you other readers.)
1) Make a bit more of an introduction about the two different worlds, allowing the readers to better understand Studiocity and Ollywood (yes, I caught the many film references).
2) develop more of a story about the family that Jet is struggling to understand; her relationship with her sisters is completely relatable, and there are spot-on descriptions of their relationships from the perspective of a younger sister who comes to understand her family better. There wouldn't have to be extensive elaboration, just a bit more.

I read this as I was searching for YA novels for a new teacher, and I truly enjoyed reading this. Read it, and enjoy it!

[Milliebot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jet Latter and her robo-dog Otto are dragged by the family to Ollywood, city of dreams, when her sister's film career takes off. Jet is bored and feels ignored, so she sets off to explore the city alone (well, except for Otto, of course) and finds the strange underworld of Subway. But Jet and Otto soon discover, there's another city, even deeper than Subway, where the magic of film becomes a reality.

I've been neglecting my quest to read more Tanith, so on impulse I grabbed this off my shelf. What fun! I'm not sure if this is considered middle-grade or young adult, as Jet is fourteen and there's no love interest (not that all YA fiction revolves around a love story, but let's face it, many do), but there is a bit of spicy language and it has a sort of coming of age theme. The writing is simplistic and the story short, yet Tanith packed in a technology-ridden future world and a vast, fantasy realm.

The story is told from both Jet and Otto's points of views, interspersed with movie-like cut scenes, outtakes and set descriptions. The latter sections were mainly used to capture moments where Jet and Otto weren't present or to set the scene for a new location, and they gave a lot of depth to the story, while also providing a writing device I've never encountered before (at least, not that I can remember). Jet is a quick-witted girl and I liked the humanity (er...dogmanity?) Tanith infused into Otto.

I read this in a day, chuckled a few times, and was once again fully immersed in the rich, bright world Tanith created. I love her fantasy works, but I have to say, I enjoy her sci-fi work just a bit more. There's something about the different ways she presents the future that I really enjoy being a part of.

Tanith fans can certainly spare a moment to read this book, and I think pre-teen and teen readers with an interested in a sci-fi/fantasy blend will love it as well.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly, Tanith Lee has written better stories, but this may simply be my preference toward her adult work. Writing from the perspective of a young girl who resents her older sisters, who apparently hit puberty and became just awful, makes it seem a lot more immature than it probably should have. That aside, there's all the trademark fancifulness you'd find in her other work. Dragons and fantasy worlds with a mix of futuristic sci-fi thrown in for good measure. I'd definitely recommend this to a young audience and anyone who considers themselves a collector of Lee's work.

[SFReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a...

[Becky B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jet's oldest sister Turquoise (aka Turkey to Jet) has gone and gotten herself an acting job in a movie, so the whole family has relocated to the Ollywood planet for the duration of the shoot. Jet's middle sister and parents are all enamored with the movie life, but Jet is bored. So she goes off exploring and finds her way to the Subway of the planet, where washed up actors go to get jobs running cleaning robots and things like that. But while their Jet hears rumors about strange trains that run in the underground after things shut down, and disappearances of actors and actresses from the Subway. Soon, Jet herself finds that she and her robot dog are sucked into the land of Indigara, an odd land that is made up of 4 series pilots that never got anywhere but started to take on a life of their own. Jet must choose if she wants to stay in Indigara and play the role prescribed her, or return to the real world where shadows of her and her dog are wreaking havoc.

This was weird. I think that's the best description for it. It follows the classic plot line of a seemingly under-appreciated youngest member of the family disappearing into a fantasy world, and then faced with whether or not she should return to the real world, if she really matters to her family. But beyond those basics and the basics of movie making, Lee invents her own tongue-in-cheek, hyperbolic Hollywood world that is obsessed with epic movies (primarily Greek historical or myth epics) and doesn't know what to do with a girl who doesn't care about the movies. Lee invents new vocabulary that is just close enough to what we know it is easy to figure out. This could have been genius, but it just...wasn't. I think a big miss was marketing it as YA instead of MG. Jet feels like more of a MG protagonist, but the family swears WAY too much to be MG. So if they had cut out a huge chunk of the swearing and aimed it at 12 year olds, I think it'd have worked better. Also, I never really felt any pressing need for Jet to decide whether to stay or go back. It never felt like she was in danger. Indigara didn't seem to really need her. And though the shadows were leaving a trail of disaster in the real world, they were actually quite entertaining and provided the best parts of the book so I could've watched them longer. As it is, it feels like a scifi B movie that probably has a tiny cult following, but will go out of print quickly (if it hasn't already, I picked up my copy at a used book store for super cheap). If you like books that poke fun of Hollywood, and weird scifi, and don't mind the dysfunctional family that swears quite a bit at each other, snatch this up.

Notes on content: I lost track of the minor swears, somewhere over 20, plus about 10 moderate swears (most of this was Jet's family talking to each other). No sexual content per se, but there's something going on between the middle daughter (who is somewhere between 14-16...it said her age but I forget) and an older movie director (40-50) that is somewhat hinted at and the father gets upset over at first but then basically caves to money. This is very vague with no details, but felt slimy. There are battles in the movie plot lines, but it doesn't seem like anyone gets hurt seriously for real...though Jet isn't sure what happens in Indigara's battles.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tanith Lee is one of the most famous fantasy writers out there and rightly so. Her gift of bringing the mystical into the mundane has been honed by decades of fantasy writing. Indigara is one of her latest and doesn’t disappoint for sheer breathtaking originality.

A young Jet, bored by her elder sisters and their preening over getting into an Ollywood film, gets pulled into the underground world of Indigara, a weird reflection of the world above, where Hollywood films get played out, along with old scripts, silly dialogue, sets that function as exteriors and interiors and actors act out their roles. This world is fun, at first, but Jet gradually realizes that it’s really terrifying as well. Alice down the rabbit hole, indeed.

Accompanied by her faithful mechanical dog Otis, Jet must navigate the weirdness that is Indigara (complete with subtitles!) and decide whether she wants to stay or head back home…or even how to head back home. Indigara soars, enchants and amuses. It’s a terrific novel, just like a blockbuster but even better.

[Martha Schwalbe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was the first book in a series I started reading in the middle. The questions pile up. It wasn't part of the series.

I think young adult readers who like science fiction will enjoy this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun and funny, with a zany, balls to the wall plot, and all addressed with irreverent humor - teenagers, the film industry, futurism (the names alone were hilariously tongue in cheek). Also the very best robot dog boi.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its uniqueness offsets its bland writing.

[CrowCaller · Rating 3 out of 5]

What did I just read? What was the message? The point? The anything? HUH?

[Dawn Cancellieri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely creative idea, but suffers from poor execution. It feels rushed and unfinished, almost more like an outline for a story rather than a complete story in and of itself.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely imagery, not her best story.

[Shazza Maddog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tanith Lee takes a look at Hollywood in Indigara, or Jet and Otis Conquer the World. Our heroine, Jet, is the youngest daughter of the Latter family, with her older sisters, Turquoise and Amber, and her S. C. Deluxe Dog, Otis. Turquoise has been cast as the third handmaiden to Helenett in the new Super Movie, the Fall of Super Troy, and the entire family has moved to Ollywood for the filming. Jet and Otis, bored by Ollywood and the way they’re being treated, start prowling around in the undercity, known as the Subway, where they meet a robo-janitor boss, Ben. Ben takes them even deeper into Subway, where the little umbrella lights no longer bloom, and the hobos decide Jet would make a great hostage.

But instead of becoming a pair of hostages, Jet and Otis are transported to the world of Indigara by a dragon, a land of Ollywood scripts gone amuck. Where time is as fluid as a movie script, and everyone talks as if they’re in the middle of a bad fantasy movie, Indigara is home to a pair of warring factions, the first led by Aragon, deposed prince of Diamond City, the second led by Bekmira Ren, who conquered Diamond City and deposed Aragon. Jet gets caught up in the battle in the most unlikely (or maybe clichéd?) way, and is trying her best to find her way out of the war, and even out of Indigara, because, seriously, there’s no place like home - even if the shadows of Jet and Otis are currently causing a lot of trouble there.

A very witty look at the tropes in fantasy movies and novels, mostly seen through the eyes of Jet or Otis, and what happens when someone who can see through the tropes blunders onto the set. There were a lot of scenes that made me laugh out loud at the sheer hilarity and sarcasm evident in the words, and this pre-teen novel is definitely up there with Lee’s better works for young adults.

[Jordan Price]

There were a lot of concepts in this book that seemed like they'd be cool, only I didn't think they meshed with each other well. The main character's sister gets a small supporting role in a film, and the whole family moves out to "Ollywood" while it's filming. The idea that people could go live in a film-world, leaving a naughty doppleganger behind, was a cool one. The futuristic setting didn't necessarily support that core idea, though. What if the story had been set in the early days of film, maybe at the advent of the talkies? What if there were actual historical Hollywood details, and not this fictional "Ollywood?"

Other than the setting not complementing the plot, I was also disappointed in the characterization. The protagonists whole family read like generic "mom," "dad," and "sisters." The protagonist had a sidekick robot dog who I liked -- he was understated in his take on the shifting reality -- but I think I would have been willing to give him up for a realistic setting.

There were also dragons involved, but their connection to the rest of the plot seemed so tenuous that they didn't feel integrated to me.

The structure involved sections that read like set directions and personal logs -- I enjoyed that, but again, probably would have enjoyed it more without the incongruous futuristic setting.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indigara impressed me. Not only did it prove to me that Tanith Lee could write something that was simultaneously futuristic and fantastical without making one of these elements seem contrived and disappointing (*cough* Claidi *cough*), but it was also a story that had more depth and ambiguity than its cutesy futuristic cover suggests.

That being said, I can't see myself ever re-reading this story. It had an interesting format (movie-script meets journal, frequently switching perspectives and divided into four parts), which helped reinforce the pervasive motifs of fiction and reality, fantasy and choice, and the mysterious problems of a futuristic world. Indigara was doing more than telling a story, it was trying to communicate something complicated and bittersweet, a dark message about loss and choices which was belied by the cutesy children's-book marketing. Not that I think this book is necessarily the stuff of classic literature, or even that it deserves to be widely read (it was kind of weird, and probably not futuristic enough for scifi nerds and not old-timey/otherworldly enough for fantasy nerds). I just found it a more substantial read than the mindless fluff I had anticipated.

[Polly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gold mine of endless treasure: That is what Tanith Lee is like. She can create parallel worlds a reader slips into like an old pair of jeans. How does she do this? It must have to do with creating something just shy of familier. I wish everyone knew about this author. Take a place, time, and a whole lot of odds 'n ends, shake them up, you have this wonderful spliced full of everything novella. If all her books are this interesting, you'll have enough sustinance for your imagination to last a lifetime. I'd like some more.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very intriguing book. There are so many twists and turns it's so very enjoyable. It has several interesting parallels to The Wizard of Oz and is a good sci-fi read. Jet, the main character, is a strong, yet believable, leading lady who is the perfect heroine. Otis, her faithful dog, is another adventurous character that fits in perfectly. This book is a good read and you'll probably never guess the ending!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is about a 12 year old girl named Jet. She lives in the future with her robot dog Otis. She and her family have gone to the planet Ollywood for her sister, Turquoise, to work in a movie. While she is visiting the subway there, she and her dog are transported to a world called Indigara which was a pilot film never made into a series.

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Futuristic novella. Jet and her robot dog, Otis, wander around "Ollywood" while her sister performs in a movie. While wandering, they hear strange rumors and end up traveling into another world - one made up of 4 failed movies from her world. Jet must decide if she wants to return to her old life, and if she does, how to do it.

[Dwight · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is unfortunate that the first Tanith Lee book that looked interesting enough to read turned out to be a YA book. I'm afraid there was nothing here that I can recommend. Which is doubly sad, because it makes me even more unlikely to read any of Tanith Lee's other books in the future.

[SR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vaguely silly, but full of cool stuff and based on a pretty interesting premise. And the main character is adorable. So's her dog.

[Katya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read twice. it was a fair book

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read.

[harlequin {Stephanie} · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't get past the horrible writing style to even get to the real story. I love fantasy written by Lee, but not much else.