#bookreview: Immortal Creators | Jill Bowers

Immortal Creators by Jill Bowers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Scott Beck doesn’t want to be an Immortal Writer. Not after watching his father, Kent Beck, die defeating his own villains. Yet, there he is. His characters are coming over into the Real World and he needs his protagonists help to defeat the Betans, horrible blood-thirsty aliens, before they destroy earth.

Immortal Creators is an absolutely fun read. I liked it much better than the first one, Immortal Writers, even though I’m mostly a fantasy fan and this book camped out in the SciFi wing of the Castle. Well, fun that is, until you hit the ending and go, “What? But I don’t understand…” See, cos Scott has this Writing Fever and a weird connection to the Imagination Field that no one can explain. Bowers drops hints here and there, and something happens at the end which makes Scott go OH NOW I KNOW WHY. But that eureka moment is never explained to the readers. At all. I thought I might have missed it, but I went back and read through the last few chapters to try to figure it out, but I still don’t get it. All I can tell is that it’s something to do with him being different and something his father did. But what?! (I doubt that’s a spoiler because it’s so vague, ha)

One thing I loved about Immortal Creators is how self-aware it is as a novel about writers. Bowers pokes fun at writers who have fuzzy ideas of some parts of their creation—but it works in the book because the details weren’t necessary. One of the problems they faced is the fact that Scott may have dreamt up their alien spaceship, but he doesn’t know the details of the second floor because he never had to use it! (And of course, the Reality Field fit in whatever it thought best when the fictional characters crossed over.) They faced a similar problem with the Betan language, but Tolkien was there to help.

Also had a little squee moment when CS Lewis showed up.

Immortal Creators is really a writer’s fan book, disguised as a novel. You’ll love it if you love everything to do with writing and reading. And long-dead writers.

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book via NetGalley. I was given the book with no expectation of a positive review and the review is my own.

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