Once Upon a Summer Day is a continuation of an epic story arc where four royal siblings are responsible for enchanted forests reflective of each major season. In spite of the title, Once Upon a Summer Day is the story of the “winter lord,” Lord Borel. In a reasonably interesting alchemy of fairy tale references with the author’s own rather minor twists, the “winter lord” treks off to rescue a princess. The story has more meat than the Mario/Zelda storyline I just typed, but the bulk of it is relatively predictable. One is certain that dreams and reality are going to be linked in some obvious way and one is certain that the retelling of fairy tales as legend will reflect what the protagonist has done.Since there are so few surprises in this novel, my review will have to be brief lest I vary even further into the land of spoilers beyond the boundary of social acceptability than I did in the last sentence of the previous paragraph. I can say that the book reads more swiftly than I expected when I realized it was intended to be part of an epoch and that I appreciate very much that the author kept the point of view very keenly from the perspective of the “winter lord.” I also rather enjoyed the anti-Jiminy Cricket nature of the field sprite who accompanied Lord Borel throughout much of the journey. My favorite line in this novel was an exchange between Borel and the astral presence of the princess he needed to rescue. They were in the Autumnwood, his sibling’s demesne, when she asked:“’Then nothing changes in the Autumnwood? All things plucked replaced?’ Borel nodded. ‘How sad,’ said Chelle, ‘Wonderful, but in the end quite sad.’” (p. 122) Even though its appeal to the necessity of different times for different purposes wasn’t entirely original (aka Ecclesiastes 3?), I thought its usage here was clever. Once Upon a Summer Day doesn’t quite have the explicit action, truly insidious magic and subterfuge, or depth of characterization that I enjoy, but it was a pleasant adventure to read. It would certainly make a terrific counterpoint to those who are gorged with the atrocities in books by George R. R. Martin and David Gemmell.
