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Overview
Allele Island is a beachcomber's paradise for a charming creature named Eena Beena, who tends her stretch of beach--and the hapless castaways who wash up there--as if it were her own private garden. Everything changes when a deranged ape named Prospero arrives with plans for an evil experiment. A novel of adventure, word play, and high literary nonsense.Editorials
Kirkus Reviews
Clever in parts but never quite adding up to a coherent whole, this satirical fantasy pits kind-hearted, monkey-like beachcomber Eena Beena and her haughty royal double Queena Beena against Prospero, a gorilla with a mad compulsion to break through the magical barrier that separates his world from ours. Ranged against him are not only the two Beenas, but also numerous allies-notably jocular sage Professor Tertius Legume (another ape); a colony of hardworking, fun-loving earwigs; and Tog, a wood- and paper-devouring silverfish with a secret identity. Despite repeated face-offs with Prospero during a dangerous journey that takes the Beenas from their native Allele Island to the Circle of Fates in the remote north, readers will be far more diverted by the quirky cast. Occasional challenges include, for Eena Beena, a bout of Scramble Pox that transforms her every utterance into an anagram (the title is an anagram too, for "Know Thyself"), and for Queena Beena, being changed into a flea by an application of Flea Powder. In the end, Prospero suffers a dismal fate, whereupon everyone goes home. Olshan's Huck Finn pastiche, Finn: A Novel (2001), made a big splash, but this outing just coasts on the ripples. (Fantasy. 11-13)Book Details
Published
June 12, 2026
Publisher
Chacmool Press
Pages
352
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780978939106