This review is of the audiobook edition, and was posted originally at SFFaudio (http://www.sffaudio.com):

When this audio novella came in for review, it took a few days to make the connection: Mike Mignola is the creator of Hellboy! I'm a fan of the Hellboy movies (directed by Guillermo del Toro), but haven't picked up any of the comics. If anyone has a recommendation for a particular volume I'd like to give it a go.

Mignola and Christopher Golden, the writing team that produced some Hellboy novels, wrote this. The Amazon description calls it "an illustrated novella". I haven't spotted a copy of this at a bookstore, but I'd like to so I can see the art. Mignola, in an interview with Geek's Guide to the Galaxy gives Christopher Golden full credit for the writing, so I suspect that this audiobook contains little of Mignola's input.

The story did have a Hellboy (or even a Pan's Labyrinth) feel to it. Dark, a bit sad, with something spiritually sinister about. It's about an Italian orphanage in World War II, shortly after the Allies' victory. Father Gaetano, recently assigned there, and a group of nuns struggle to connect with the grieving children. One of the kids finds puppets and a puppet stage in the basement, and Fr. Gaetano decides to put it to use. The kids become more interested as he, with their help, paints the puppets as Old Testament characters, then performs stories with them.

And then, the problem - the puppets come to life at night, and they take on the persona of the Bible characters they have been decorated to portray. Not knowing this, Father Gaetano plods along with his plans, and he wants to tell the story of Lucifer's fall.

This wasn't a bad novella, but it wasn't stellar either. An interesting idea, and there are some great scenes, but even at novella length it feels a bit padded out. Still, it's worth a listen, in my opinion. Or a look if you can find the hardcopy. Nick Podehl is a terrific narrator.

In the middle of the chaos, death, and destruction of WWII, in the tiny town of Tringale in Sicily, Father Gaetano is trying to teach the orphans of the convent of San Domenico. He is charged with teaching them the Bible, as well as bringing them the message of God’s love and forgiveness. But the orphans are resistant: How can they believe in a loving God? Why would God kill their parents and destroy their homes?

Little Sebastiano has one precious toy: a puppet, which, so the boy claims, speaks to him. With the puppet as a prop, Sebastiano tells tales to the rest of the orphans, and gives Father Gaetano an idea – perhaps he can use a box of old puppets, created by hand by a now-deceased caretaker and long consigned to the rectory basement, in his teaching. He and the boys drag up the old puppets and the puppet stage, and the lessons begin.

But the young priest has no idea of the horror he’s unleashed. The puppets are sentient. Just as the boys question their God, the puppets hold Father Gaetano ultimately responsible for their creation, and they turn on him with a terrible vengeance.

Good for those who need a little paranormal freak-out with their WWII Italian fiction, as well as for fans of Hellboy and Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier, both by Mignola.
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I chose 84, Charing Cross Road to fit in my purse, but I finished it in just over two subway rides...which left me up a creak the next day, when I once again had to leave behind my briefcase. I'd already read The Little Prince, which meant I was running out of short, small books. Rather than commit to a 300-page trade paperback, I reached for this one.

What a delightfully creepy little story!

There were a few things that chafed, though.

1. Requisite priest/nun romance on the side of an imperfect priest which must be cooled by the nun. Not that priests would never be tempted, but it's a dirt common sin. Give me a story with a priest who battles with his compulsive lying or something.

2. Whacking out Christianity at the knees. I mean, I get that questioning is an integral part of most stories involving religion, but there didn't seem to be much effort to portray faith in a positive light...which is, quite honestly, the opposite of a complex situation. (For example, the fact that not a single one of the biblical "good guys" puppets, including saints, actively resisted the Lucifer puppet.)

3. After saying that he's "starting at the beginning", the first story that Father Gaetano presents is David and Goliath...then Noah...then the extrabiblical Paradise Lost. Um, what?

4. Father Gaetano's lost teaching moment. Completely spoilery, so read on at your own risk. I get that there was a lot going on after the attack, but it seems like an intelligent priest with FG's worldview might take a moment when everyone's attributing the puppets' animation to the devil to point out that, wherever their power comes from, it's not from God. Since they're not God's creations, they don't have free will, which means they are only what they are made to be: no more, no less. Quite unlike the children, after all! (This is an approach entirely from what seems to me to be a reasonable approximation of what FG's view of the puppets might be, not my own. After all, no attempt was made to talk to the puppets, let alone reason with them, so the extent of their will remains unknown.)

5. No one thinks to do the obvious: redesign the puppets quickly so that they're all good, kind, faithful characters...or redesign Lucifer into Jesus (yeah, I kind of thought that might happen, though thematically it wouldn't make sense) .

I always end up over-critiquing the books that I enjoy, but it's in large part because I only write a lot about books that connected to me. Yes, there are a couple cases where it's been because I was actively angry about something/s (The Art of Racing in the Rain), but this most certainly was not one of those cases. I enjoyed the creepy book and thoroughly agree with Comic Book Resources's assessment that it "would make a great gift for Neil Gaiman's All Hallow's Read."

Quote Roundup

7 - "They're angry at God, but they can't punish Him for it. Sometimes they punish me and some of the other kids instead."
No points for originality, but it's an important point to make early on in a kid's book. It could be pretty mind-blowing depending on the reader's age.

39 - The devil might be mankind's greatest enemy, but Father Gaetano firmly believed that the second greatest nemesis faced by any priest must be Monday.
This made me laugh. Seems like Mondays are always tough, even when you're looking forward to them.

66 - "Read? Not at all. But I am committed to a course of action."
I feel like this is often how I live my life. I gave up waiting to be ready back in high school when I realized that I usually wasn't ready until too late.

98 - "God made so much rain fall that everyone drowned. How is that love?"
Father Gaetano nodded, making sure to keep his expression serious, as the question warranted, though he had a smile in his heart. They were thinking. It was the best gift he could have asked for.
For all my beefs with the way this story handles religion, I did really like this. Not all religious leaders, even in conservative institutions like the Catholic Church, are no-questions blind-faith-only kind of people, and I was glad to see this represented.

(139 - "Lucifer tried to kill me."
"He tried to kill his Creator! To him, you are God. He was just doing what you made him do do, acting out his part."
This was where point #4 really hit home for me. The comparison is imperfect, but the only one who protests it is Father Gaetano, who the narrative has spent quite a bit of time casting doubt on. The fact that Sebastiano became a priest only seems to reinforce the correctness of his interpretation--that is, that God made people as they are and they have no choice but to act accordingly. Of course, there's a very interesting metaliterary issue going on at the same time: we treat he characters as though they have their own will, but they are as much at the direction and mercy of their creators as the puppets are.

159 - "I'm not God! I only held the strings!"
"Perhaps you should have held on to them more tightly."
Again, we don't exactly trust either of these characters at this point, so it's unclear whether this important exchange can be taken seriously or not. This makes me uneasy because the metaphor could apply to the "strings" of the children's education. Father Gaetano let them loose, allowed and even preferred for them to ask questions, but the result if it all isn't exactly encouraging!
like whoa) ( )

Stunning: a book I will gift to people and re-read, especially around Halloween. Simple horror that's not gory or sexist, and it didn't make me afraid of my own dog/car/basement/phone. Pure evil--where else?--in an obscure little religious community. Great storytelling. ( )

A nifty little fable, but there doesn't seem to be much there there. ( )