By Thea Srinivasan
While the mind is considered the greatest source of creativity, I consider one the greatest tools to create adventures we could never experience in reality. Some of the greatest stories end up becoming dream catchers for some people. But unlike dream catchers, the author chooses what they want their readers to see. When I think about it, books are like dream catchers for the author. With their intent in mind, they create tales that give experiences to other people around the world, regardless of how the story is told.
The Tales of Reverie is a series about a boy named Nous who has ended up in a long-term sleep paralysis due to continual night terrors. Within his mind, he created different realms with strange characters representing different parts of his mind. Each character ends up on a different journey while Nous ends up on a journey to find his dad. When an oracle named Gnobo is delivered a psychic message, it begins a string of events that place different characters on a path for a big change that is about to occur.
I’m normally skeptical about stories that take place in dreams because they are usually a hit or miss situation. Either the dream ends up as an adventure with no connection to the real world or the dream itself is one giant projection of the main character itself. With that, the characters end up bouncing all over the place in terms of their personalities and decision making and I end up finding a story that makes me want to throw it away. Luckily, the creator didn’t do that here. Although the creator connected several characters back to Nous, they aren’t so dependent on Nous that they cannot function independently. Instead, they are most likely representations of events and people in Nous’ life and they end up with individual personalities to help Nous complete his journey rather than dependent on him alone to exist.
The characters have great personalities, but some of them represent archetypes found in other stories. It doesn’t hinder the characters’ overall growth, but it does limit the potential we could see from them. For example, there is a character named Gnobo and he visually frightening to the human eye. Yet he is quite a soft-hearted character whose focus is on being an oracle. Yet I later see his curiosity get to the better of him as he decides to explore at night and it’s these unique elements that allow readers to get new potentials they’ve never seen in other stories. Another example is the King of Regum Sol. Although he is a king with a great kingdom, military and economy for his people, it’s still not enough for him. It ends up being a situation where he slowly loses himself to the madness of power. While this very interesting to see, it is a plot device that has been used over and over again with kings from other stories.
Although the characters aren’t the greatest, I find the art so stunning and intricate. The art style reminds me of Diego Rivera, a famous painter from Mexico who influenced the 20th century. Unlike Rivera, the artist places most of their details on the shapes of everything and everyone. Then, they use bold colors to make the panel stand out as a piece of artwork. However, intricacy can also cause movement between panels to be abrupt and that generally makes me want to cringe. Surprisingly, the artist was able to keep the movement from each scene without a lot of trouble.
Although this story has a beautiful world with stunning characters, I would hope that the author is able to let the characters grow and be a bit less predictable compared to other characters I’ve seen from other stories. This tale is for the person who wants a story wrapped up in confusion on how everything is related back to a single source.
Score: 4/5
The Tales of Reverie #1 & 2
Self- Published