The Arrivals

This is a very hard book to describe, which is a positive in this case – a portal fantasy involving sympathetic vampires, semi-domesticated dragons, outlaws and magic – in a Wild West-ish setting. On second thought, guess it's not that tough to describe after all.

That may sound like Marr's tried to throw too many things into the mix, and technically she made have – but she made it work well enough to get through almost 300 pages. Decades ago, a brother and sister (Kitty and Jack) from the Berkeley Area in the late 1800's vanish and reappear in a new world, called The Wasteland. Some time later, they're joined by others – including a Prohibition-era mobster, Edgar and then others from various periods in America. And other than one particular event in their background, there's virtually nothing these people have in common.

Once they arrive in The Wasteland – each new person has to make a decision, to live with Jack and “The Arrivals” or to become a henchman to a pretty twisted proto-mafioso. Independence or some sort of servitude. The majority opt for the security and safety of the latter.

Oh, did I mention there are demon-summoning monks roaming around?

Jack and his people make ends meet doing odds and ends for the local governor, and other miscellaneous figures. Just trying to eke out a living, have a little left over for fun (read: whiskey).

It could be coincidence, it could be a matter of timing, or maybe it's just the new presence of someone who showed up from 2013 Earth – but things that have been pretty much the same for decades start to change – and the Wasteland will never be the same.
quickly develop into well-rounded characters. This is probably Marr's strength (not a knock on anything else she did here), as we see that the heroes aren't always that heroic, most of the villains aren't that bad either (most of them).It's a fun read, a quick read in an incredible world, with well-build and realized characters. Worth your time.

This has to be one of the most original stories I have read in years. If you are not drawn in by the cover, or by the fact that this is by Melissa Marr (I loved Graveminder), then I don't know how to sell it to you. Is is SciFi? I say yes. Is it fantasy? Also yes. Is it a Western? Meh, not really. I tore into this in a blaze and right away I made the guess that they were all characters in a video game. That made the most sense to me. Whether I was right or not, I'll never tell.
Here's what I will say: this is completely original. It's fast paced. It has elements I've never come across before, and some that I thought I knew but that appear in a different form here. It's not a beach read, and it will not appeal to anyone who wants a story handed to them in a tight package with a tiny bow. And all of that is OKAY by me. I appreciated that the romance was not the driving force in the story.
What I had some trouble with was 1. the world building-it's not complete and what we are given isn't satisfying at all. We see one tiny sliver of the Wasteland, and it's the one created by the “arrivals” not the natives, so it's not even the real Wasteland. 2. Characterization- everyone is really only a single layer. Jack and Kitty are fleshed out a bit more than the others, but not by much. No one seems to evolve beyond the time period they came from. 3. The villain- he's nuts, but beyond that who is he and what does he want? Why does he want Kitty so badly when he can do what she does already? It feels a little incomplete. 4. Repetition- there is a ton of repetition. Page after page about how much Jack trusts Garuda, about about how he is the leader of the group. I could have used a lot less repetition about stuff we already know (I should have counted how many time the phrase “Garuda is on Jacks' short list of people he trusts” showed up) and more time on stuff we don't- like why we should even care about Chloe and where do the goods come from in the stores? How do people survive in the Wasteland, what kind of history did this world have?, and what other creatures roam the desert at night?

So, overall, a good read. I wonder if it will be a series and if more will be fleshed out later. I recommend it to people who are looking for something “different” to read. As I am still waiting for a sequel to Graveminder, we may have a bit of a wait, but I would read about the group again.

A cover note: I had it in my mind for the first 100 pages that Edgar was supposed to be a Charlie Chaplin type, because he does not look like a gangster on the cover- I would have given him a fedora and a tommy gun, not a Victorian dandy-ish cane. Also, Chloe never wears a dress, and Kitty's never described as wearing that full of a skirt. A bustle would have been more appropriate. I do LOVE the graphics!