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Miles And The Magic Flute (2014)

by Heidi Cullinan(Favorite Author)

3.45 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Wilde City Press

review 1: Miles and the Magic Flute by Heidi Cullinan is a very unusual urban fantasy that (apart from the explicit sex scenes) may remind readers of the unsettling blend of the mundane and the phantasmagoric offered by fantasy writers such as Charles de Lint or Emma Bull. It features a parallel world of the fey, which exists alongside the Minnesota setting and is refreshingly free of overtly Celtic influences. The fey world is stripped down enough to feel archetypical as if it could happen anywhere and yet vivid enough to draw the reader in. The hero, Miles, is an intriguing blend of stubbornness, self-pity, irritability, and courage, and the minor characters (especially in Minnesota) are fascinatingly weird. Miles experiences a lot of character growth and his dark and twisty journ... moreey between worlds was full of surprises. My only regret is that the ending drags out longer than it should, piling on quirky details about our heroes’ fate, and it feels self-indulgent, but it’s a small problem in a good story.The story begins with 27 year-old Miles about to reach the breaking point with his life, which has gone downhill since he got laid off from a lucrative career in Atlanta. He lost his boyfriend, job, and home. Now, he’s returned to the small town in Minnesota where he got picked on all through high school. He works a boring job in a pawnshop run by a lesbian couple who also rent him a room in their trailer, and he longs for escape. However, his chaotic state of mind has opened a door between worlds, and he crosses over only to find himself in the world of the fey, fleeing with a handsome tricky nobleman from a frightening, but compelling, beast-man. But nothing is as it seems, and he’s not certain which man to trust, or whether both are victims of a more powerful, malign intelligence that awaits its chance to destroy him. As he crosses back and forth between worlds, he searches for patterns and clues to tell him what to do.Val for AReCafe
review 2: Just finished a rather unusual fantasy titled "Miles and the Magic Flute" by Heidi Cullinan. I've come across very few gay-themed urban fantasy titles in the Charles de Lint vein, so I was eager to check this one out. And it’s a rather bizarre tale, to be sure!I wasn't overly taken with Miles to begin with, as he didn't exactly come across as a particularly likable individual. Oh, no doubt he had his troubles---he’d been made redundant and was basically penniless, forced to live in the spare bedroom of an old childhood friend while he doing odd jobs for her pawn shop. But his attitude was more than a little grating---filled with anger and regret and self-pity at his current situation, he kept whinging on in a most irritating manner. But one day as he articulated his frustration, something heard him in the wood behind the shop, and he found himself drawn into the faerie realm, with typically disastrous and frightening results. (Oldest rule in the book---you simply don’t mess around with faeries, who tend to be cold and capricious and without human pity or other emotions.)However, these fantastic experiences do help to bring out the long-hidden good qualities of Miles’ character, and as the story progresses he begins to change for the better, even as his situation becomes ever more dire.This story would by no means be classified as erotica, but it’s true enough that the book contains a number of fairly explicit passages. This can be either a plus or a negative, depending on the reader’s taste. As for me, personally, I didn't find these portions of the text to be particularly appealing (due to the nature of the encounters), and I would have been quite happy if they had been scaled back considerably. In movie terms, I would have preferred the book to have the equivalent of a PG-13 rating, rather than an R. But that’s just me; I daresay there are others for whom this wouldn't be an issue at all.So, a slightly mixed rating from me---loved the inventiveness of the story and the plotting, but could have done without some of the sex. If the urban fantasy genre appeals to you, by all means give it a try.I’m not at all adverse to checking out some of the author’s other work in the future, and in fact (looking through her Amazon listings) I see I have actually already read one of her other books, the Regency "A Private Gentleman." Boy, this story couldn't be more different that that one! less

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