When a new kitten arrives at Jeff and Maureen’s house, he has little idea of what awaits him. A trio of mature cats soon explain how their kind has both the privilege and responsibility of exploring and policing a magical realm known as The Dreaming. As the kitten’s latent powers begin to manifest, darker denizens of The Dreaming begin to take notice.

Inspired by author J.R. Konkol’s household cats, THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT is, in its own way, amiable and relatable: cats often appear to have deep (if mysterious) interior lives, and it’s tempting to imagine they’re up to something when they sleep for hours at a time. THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT takes this to an extreme, envisioning a layered fantasy world in which cats’ astral bodies traverse The Dreaming, a colorful distortion of the physical world, and attend Moots to discuss matters of grave importance. Cats have clearly delineated roles in this society: Housen is a simple layabout, but Ajax is a Guardian, and Shaman is named in recognition of his status as a “Conjurepurr” (a cat mage). These sorts of details generate much of the fun of reading.

However, this highly structured fantasy worldbuilding also creates some friction. THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT can feel, for lack of a better word, very “video-gamey” in its construction. The cats’ named roles feel like RPG classes; the characters cast spells or summon allies to fight for them, consuming magical items to replenish their stores of magical energy; there’s a curious “loading screen” phenomenon in The Dreaming, in which nearby areas are only ambiguously visible until the cats have crossed an invisible boundary into that territory. In a particularly unusual episode, the cats navigate an urban sector of The Dreaming and a friendly raccoon explains three different paths for avoiding a parade of armed vehicles, based on their fixed pathways and the reload time of their weapons. This sort of complex spatial problem is core to video gaming, but it’s somewhat stilted—and hard to understand—in a non-visual medium. Ultimately, this strong quantification of the worldbuilding and action leaves them feeling shallower.

The fantasy worldbuilding also creates some tonal disjunction. The worldbuilding is not only flavorful and consistent (Shaman is not a kitten but a Kitanja; the cats are Cah’ten), but also quite dark. The cats find themselves fighting more than one tentacled, chitinous eldritch horror, often suffering bloody wounds and worrying about the loss of their nine lives. But mere moments after encountering an Eldritch Nightmare named Uohr’Koren, commonly called “The Devourer Beneath the Dark Earth,” the text returns to calling the human characters “hoomans” or refers to Shaman’s various magical abilities, all based on “purr” puns (Purrtection, Telepurrtation, etc.). This kind of tonal mélange can work in other media, but it’s hard to pull off in prose, and THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT tends to undermine the integrity of its worldbuilding and storytelling with these goofier ideas.

The biggest stumbling block, however, is lack of clarity in the narrative. THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT devotes a great deal of time to worldbuilding and epic combat between its magical cats and their terrifying archenemies, but the plot is diffuse and somewhat centerless. There is an overall shape: it seems that outsiders are aware of Shaman’s potential powers, and the other cats therefore traverse The Dreaming to seek counsel on how to handle the situation. But this mostly plays out in loose traversal of The Dreaming and occasional explanation from the older cats. There’s a real missed opportunity in not fleshing out the character of Shaman, especially since he and Ajax form a protective child-parent bond that is only shallowly explored. This could be the emotional heart of the story, and would simultaneously provide a clearer access point for the reading to approach the worldbuilding.

THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT lacks the clarity of some important forebears, like Richard Adams’s Watership Down. That novel also introduces a reader to a thorough, mythic fantasy culture (including a fantastical rabbit language), but the text is anchored in a quest for an explicit goal (protecting the warren in its migration to a new den) and an ensemble of richly drawn characters. Without these fundamental strengths, THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT feels more like a sketch of ideas than a story.

J.R. Konkol’s THE GUARDIAN’S GAMBIT is heartfelt and charming at times, but it doesn’t quite cohere into a successful narrative.

~Dan Accardi for IndieReader