Filaria Book

Another small press gem, this time the debut last year of ChiZine publications.

Taking place in a multi-leveled structure with strong echoes of Gene Wolfe Long Sun' starship, Filaria is the tale of several characters who start at different levels and in quite different social positions.

Symmetrically divided into 4x4 chapters, each 4 chapter section having an indicative title, and headed by the POV's position in the structure, Filaria is a page turner, absorbing and quite dense packing inside material for a novel double its size.

There is adventure, sense of wonder, love, excitement and the characters' arcs are very well done and quite moving. The last section which explains some of the mysteries is well done, bringing a good closure to the novel but leaving enough open-ended stuff to avoid "over-explaining" which sometimes plague novels of discovery like this one.

One thing to be aware of is the abrupt endings of many chapters, while the restart of the respective character tells many times of of dramatic events that have happened in the meantime and that made me go back and make sure I have not somehow missed then; but do not worry the gap here is filled soon and we understand what happened as well as continuing the particular tale.

Just superb!