Street Magic

by Michael Reaves

A teenage runaway on the streets of San Francisco discovers a hitherto unseen world of fairy creatures, many of them runaways like himself, and joins them in a search for the portal that will allow them to return to their magical home.

There remains some Magic in this world of ours, although the Fair Realm draws further and further away. Gateways linger in a few places--and particularly in cities built on the hollow hills.

Danny was different from the other San Francisco street kids. Danny believed in Magic, believed in it despite everything that had happened to him.

Then one foggy night, while fighting imaginary dragons, he came face to face with True Magic. He found a girl dressed in tie-dye and flowers, who could vanish from mortal sight, and whose tears of homesickness rang in the night like pure crystal notes. Her name was Robin, and she was a Scatterling: one of the elven-kind left trapped in the mortal realms when the Queen of Fairie locked the gates of her land to all but the Highest Born.

And when Robin looked at Danny, she knew that he could open a gateway to the Fair Realm, if only she could find the key to unlock his memory and his power.

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

246 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Michael Reaves is an Emmy Award-winning television writer and screenwriter whose many credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Twilight Zone, Batman: The Animated Series, and Gargoyles. His novels include the New York Times bestseller STAR WARS: Darth Maul- Shadowhunter and STAR WARS: Death Star. He and Neil Gaiman cowrote Interworld. Reaves has also written short fiction, comic books, and background dialogue for a Megadeth video. He lives in California.

Reviews

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. In just under 250 pages Reaves' weaves together six different narrative without missing a beat and wraps up the story with a surprising and satisfying ending. The themes of lost and loneliness vibrate throughout the book; the feeling of nostalgia is there even for someone who hasn't lived through the same eras as the characters, who are some of the most lifelike I've seen in quite a few books.

This book definitely has a place on my favorites bookshelf to be read over and over. A classic piece of urban fantasy from before the genre exploded.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

How can I begin to count the ways in which this book is dreadful? I don't think I can. I lost IQ points just reading it. There's the whiny, spoiled, incompetent main character who is a hero only by dint of blood, and not for any redeeming personal characteristics, yet is still treated like a hero by the other characters? There's the supposedly warming this-world-is-good theme that is completely undermined by how obviously better the other world is. There's the bad dialogue. The overused cliches. I just... I can't go on.

If your friend recommends that you read this book... they are not your friend.

You want contemporary urban fantasy about elves, aimed at young adults? Go read the Bordertown series, or Mercedes Lackey, or Emma Bull. Your brain cells will thank you.

[Deborah Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t a new book, as you can see by the date (1991). In fact, I believe it’s the first urban fantasy I read, along the lines of “elves in Manhattan.” In this case, the city is San Francisco, but it could be any big, grimy, noisy city that draws runaways, abandoned kids, and the disillusioned. It’s a fairly short book, and by today’s standards quite simple, but in its time, the tropes were sufficiently new to stand on their own without an overly elaborate plot. I tried to step aside from all the urban fantasy of the last 15 years and re-read it with fresh eyes. The characters and elements that appealed to me then still do. The ones that didn’t (like the street kid to whom magical creatures are drawn) still don’t; however, what was once annoying I now see as a not-so-successful exploration of a literary shorthand we now take for granted and that has not weathered the years well.
My favorite characters included an elderly woman bookstore owner (of course!) and the photographer who once glimpsed a door into Faerie (at Muir Woods, of all places – where I visited many times as a teen and college age student, hiking in the “back way” from my parents’ house – well, redwood grove and magic do go together, or so I have always thought), botched his chance to step through that door, and now has descended into a haze of alcohol and regret. He’s not a major character and doesn’t drive the plot, but the way he grapples with his yearning to find Faerie again (and this time, seize the chance he missed before) in conflict with living an ordinary, mortal life in an ordinary, mortal world touched me deeply. Isn’t that what we all do – try to balance and integrate the unrealistic, idealistic dreaming and the humdrum, hoping to forge lives that in some way connect and nurture the miraculous?
The verdict: If you haven’t read it, do take a look. It’s a short book and moves right along, and even after all these years has something to offer, especially in the secondary characters. If you missed it and you love urban fantasy, I commend this historical perspective on the genre.

[Patricia Kaniasty · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring, boring, boring. I wanted to like this story so very badly. There was just nothing of interest there. It seemed to drag on and on. To me the characters were not well developed. Didnot feel a connection with any of them.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three comparisons on the cover of this author with de Lint.
De Lint he is not.
A rather crude, clumsy tale of fairies in San Francisco. Oh he handles the interweaving of elements well enough but there is no magic by this author primarily of Star Wars novels and scripts.

[Lauren RM · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about what it looks like - escapist fantasy story set in San Francisco about a 14 year old kid who ran away from his abusive father and then meets some fairies who say he can help them get home, with two love stories surrounding the people who are there when he escapes to fairyland thrown in for good measure. Another one I got when I was in middle school. I considered keeping it on the grounds that I think about it when it's not around, then decided to give it to the library.

[Nicholas Westbrook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for a dime store read. A little loose around the plot lines, but very delicately woven together in such a way that they all made sense in the end. A quick read at the very least, so it wasn't a lot of time spent. Enjoyable at a lot of points, but still kind of...empty overall. I would have liked a lot more to happen and for more of the world to be explained. But, what can you do? For a short book, it was enjoyable.

[Sacha Laski]

I read this the first time when I was a kid. I had so much trouble finding it that I was almost sure I had made it up myself. FINALLY found it, realized how much this was NOT a kid's book. I love it though.

[Allan Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome.
And love the question that strikes him at the end, hidden in plain sight.