Smoke

Let me start by saying Smoke gives me strong vibes of Philip Pullman's ‘His Dark Materials'. The key basic concept (what if sin was visible as a plume of smoke rising off the sinner?) is very much like the idea of Dust explored by Pullman. Vyleta takes it to further extremes by making children born to sin and unable to control their sinful ways (very catholic!) and puts in a class stratification based on the ability to control ones sin and limit the amount of smoke.

Such concepts always have a very moralistic vibe that can verge on preachy. Fortunately, Vyleta largely avoids that. There are several tropes that the story falls into though, with the coming of age of school age children, a very obviously signposted love triangle and the familial bonds leading to strange outcomes.

Ultimately there is a playful anti-hierarchical story of rebellion providing the drum beat to this tale, heavily layered with its overt moralising. An entertaining enough read and one that I am happy to have experienced. Pullman pulls of the theme slightly better, but this was a worthy effort. I will probably read the sequel at some point.