Kaileb's Dream in 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (Book List)

Dec 06, 2020 Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* rated it it was ok

Shelves: fantasy, author-self-insert, self-published-manatee-abortion, whose-idea-was-it-to-promote-this, first-sentence-problems

I am probably now the only person in existence to have read this book twice. The second time was for reasons. I will just say to the author, once they receive their next royalty payment: you're welcome.

In celebration, I share sentences from this book that will live with me forever:

'Across the lake went a shadowy figure, speeds faster than that of which I know not for any except us to have went.'

And,

'It wasn't the cold it was the stupid speed at which I could travel. That being two below slow o I am probably now the only person in existence to have read this book twice. The second time was for reasons. I will just say to the author, once they receive their next royalty payment: you're welcome.

In celebration, I share sentences from this book that will live with me forever:

'Across the lake went a shadowy figure, speeds faster than that of which I know not for any except us to have went.'

And,

'It wasn't the cold it was the stupid speed at which I could travel. That being two below slow or, negative slow.'

My original review from 2020 follows.

********************

Kaileb’s Dream is seriously punk rock. “Rules” for writing? No way! Traditional publishing couldn’t handle a book like this. Check it:

*How many other books combine striking visual art techniques with the written word? Kaileb’s Dream masterfully blends art forms by applying a Jackson Pollock technique to placement of commas, periods, and capitalization.
*Why should a cover reflect the theme or content of the book? That’s basically putting spoilers on the front. The lovely painted landscape art by illustrator Tiffany Varney (no relation) doesn’t give anything away, so the reader can fully enjoy the impact of the book’s many surprises, including what genre it might occupy.
*Grammar? Schmammer. All those books endlessly droning about past participles, dependent clauses, consistent verb tenses—who needs ‘em? And about how those same books often have chapters listing commonly misused or substituted words? That’s just a challenge to see how many you can fit into one novel. Also, why avoid the passive voice? You can't be poetic without it.
*Renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami is known for including detailed descriptions of characters preparing and eating food in his books, and he is a darling of the literary world. Why not crank that up to eleven?

Kaileb Varney’s first novel, Kaileb’s Dream, is the story of Kaileb (no relation), a 15 year old boy living with his family near Chillicothe, OH, who is secretly also White Bo, leader of the Council, which “is An Ancient foundation whose sole purpose is to protect the world from evil, in all forms.” The Council has authority over all governments in multiple worlds. At the opening, Kaileb (the character, who I will refer to as White Bo going forward, to emphasize that I am referring to the character and not the author) is about to start high school and needs to find a mistress.

I should note that all of the following may include potential spoilers for the book. Although I don't think of it as having a plot that one can actually spoil, I reveal some of the book's many spit-take moments, and if you'd like to experience those fresh then I suggest skipping the rest of this review.

In accordance with the book’s title, the introduction states,

The story is meant to be a fictional account of a continuous dream, one that regularly occurred.

Be honest; who doesn’t love listening to someone else recount a dream they had? The book succeeds in replicating common features of dreams, such as casually being able to fly, and people suddenly being present without actually being introduced to a scene and also suddenly vanishing forever from the narrative. It definitely achieves the dream-like quality of mutable reality. Outside of the dream state, one might retroactively find White Bo’s attention to picking out clothes in the opening pages absurd, once you learn some few pages later that he can change his clothes at will with a snap of his fingers. In a dream, reality changes constantly, so this makes perfect sense. Time in dreams is not always linear, so after White Bo attends high school for one day, and then is on summer break for three months, that is just fine.

The Amazon listing for this book indicates a target reader age of fourteen to eighteen. The text quickly captures the teenage spirit. You will instantly recall your identity from that time in your life when White Bo attends a party in a park where,

The attendants were grouped together, Guys, Girls, those who were dating, those who were sports fans, and other interesting variations.

It’s like a window into my past. This party scene also provides the book’s first food porn (of much, much food porn):

The smell of grilled, beef, sausage, and other meats, of which were gently but lovingly glazed with a smoky barbecue sauce, filled the air.

Yum. At this party, White Bo meets the dark-haired, olive-skinned girl of his literal dreams.

”My name…it’s, well it’s pretty long so why don’t you just call me, Hope.”

We never do learn her full name. From there it’s your typical boy-meets-girl story: they dance, she punches him in the face just to test his reaction, the next day at school he dictates how she can wear her hair, asks her out to dinner, repeatedly pranks her with his time-stopping power until she gets so mad she slaps him with full force. That evening, he demonstrates his chivalry by asking her mother for permission to take Hope out to dinner and then has a member of the Council lie to Hope’s mother about being his father. So noble.

At the buffet restaurant, they both get the salad bar,

Cause paying as much or more the cost for a single meal was pointless, and wasteful.

Even though it was stated in the immediately preceding paragraph that “any expenses were covered by the Council,” that’s just logical. After dinner, White Bo saves Hope from a flying pickup truck but she is injured, so White Bo flies her to the nearest hospital “at about six thousand miles per hour” which I think would crush her with G-forces or air resistance would flay the flesh from her bones, but that's fine. At the hospital he enters Hope’s dream and kills the demon, Slayer, possessing her, although it was also possessing the son of a Council member, which White Bo discovered through retroactive telepathy or something. Anyway, White Bo goes full into full Master mode at this point, directing Council operations, forcing Hope’s doctor to discharge Hope prematurely (it’s okay because he gives the doctor a pill to cure his wife’s multiple cancers that he just happens to know about), and spirits Hope away to his home in another realm, which was

On 3000 acres of land, thus of which was mostly forest, dotted with one huge lake and 4 smaller ones. In the direct center there was an open plain this is where I built my house. Well actually more like put, my house. I had the council go into the past a take a bunch of gold ore, and make me a house, of stone lined with the gold, they brought back.

It's a nice house! Here, all is explained to Hope at last:

“I am Master White Bo leader and protector of the White Blades Council, thus of which was founded over 7,000 years ago.”
“Ok, so your 7,000 years old then?”
“No, I am 15 I will live for 1,000 years.”
“Why do you need a mistress, to conceive a son or something?"
”That is optional, the reason I need a mistress is because I can’t heal myself, and I need her blood to heal my wounds. I cannot receive blood transfusions from, any human, or demon, only the one which possesses the “Necklace of Eternal light.”
“So, you’re not human?”
“I am human, but only half. Thus, being Master of the Council I can marry either a human or immortal. I choose human.”
“Why do you choose human? Immortal will live forever.”
“Exactly, their judgment will become clouded and their morals will fade. Also, if I were to marry an immortal she would lose me eventually and be alone forever.”
She sat then thinking of what to ask me next, I anticipated it would be something about why I chose her to be Mistress. She looked up at me and spoke softly, love drowned her voice.
“I accept I shall be Mistress White Eagle.”

Thus the stage is set for an epic love story spanning multiple worlds, culminating in all-out war against demonkind. Or, rather, a story of preparing and eating food, cleaning up, doing laundry, taking baths, going to bed, waking up, going to the market, occasionally fighting off random demon attacks or putting out a forest fire in California, and then finally culminating in all-out war against demonkind but with a few weeks’ break the middle of that to learn a new language and do some gardening.

You may have noticed the sudden appearance of various super powers in the above passages. No, you didn't miss anything prior. Like in a dream, such things just pop up as they are needed. Here is a partial list of special abilities on display, in order of introduction. I will spoiler-tag this, but you are much more likely to be surprised at why a previously established power isn't used, than at a new power suddenly revealed to the reader: (view spoiler)

One option to liven up the book is to make a drinking game out of it. It’s simple, every time “of which” is used incorrectly, take a drink! You might not make it very far (you might not even get through the quotes in this review, to be honest); the phrase appears ninety-two times. “Thus” and "justly" are other good drink triggers. You won’t catch White Bo taking part in such activities, though, no way. He does NOT drink alcohol. He may be the ultra-powerful Master of an immortal Council, King of all of Tteilqua, living alone with his Queen, able to pull rank on any world government, but since he is still underage in his home realm it is an absolute no-no for him and his wife.

Speaking of values, it’s refreshing to read about teens who turn down alcohol and avoid having sex. Even though White Bo and Hope a.k.a. White Feather are King and Queen and are married as warriors, they are not married as humans. They live together, sometimes share a bed, occasionally see each other naked in the bath, and definitely feel a growing sexual tension, but they never let it go further than kissing or occasionally drinking each other’s blood. Imagine their parents’ relief when they find out:

“So, if you’re married to her, have you…. you know gone that far to try for children?”
“No, yet we haven’t because we are only married as Warriors and not as humans as well.” Both our parents looked confused.
“What do you mean?” The both shouted.
“We must be married in a church also to be able to cross that line. If we were to now she would be killed for disobeying the rules of the Council.”
“I suggest you get married then.” My brother pointed out.
“Well the law says we must be adults to be married and thus I am fifteen and she thirteen I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”

(Bold emphasis is mine). HOLY FORKING SHIRTBALLS! This was the point at which I looked up Ohio’s age of consent and statutory rape laws. Nope, not illegal if they were doing it, just creepy A.F. Still illegal by Council standards if not Ohio’s, because they would kill the Mistress but not the Master. Typical.

White Bo holds to traditional gender values across the board. As soon as they might be boyfriend and girlfriend,

She had dressed according to my liking. She had on a long skirt and a baby blue blouse. Accented by white-buckled sandals, of which had an inch-long heel. Her hair she had put up into a ponytail and I loathed this choice, of hair style. I quickly asked her to take her hair down. I can’t stand it when, woman have either short hair, or have it up.

Once she is his Mistress, he often chooses her clothes for her:

”Hope, you don’t need to worry about clothes I have placed some pajamas on the stool near the shower, wear those. We will go shopping tomorrow and buy you some clothes for here. You will be staying here for a long while.” I smiled.

When he is aroused by seeing her blood,

My hand suddently met the left side of her neck, as my panther canines’, protruded downward. Using my left hand, I moved her hair out of the way, that of which was covering her neck, and then my sharp, fangs sank swiftly into a major artery within her neck. Her body fell limp, and we fell to the floor, her warm blood flowed through my hollow Fangs and into my mouth, it was sweet, smooth, warm, rich, and something I didn’t want to lose, but I knew I had to stop! We still remained on the floor, and she looked at me, I could tell she was confused.
“Well, what did you think? I asked softly.
“It felt good… I actually think I liked the experience.

RUN, HOPE, RUN!

On a lighter sexist note,

His wife was a bit forceful, but what woman isn’t.

. . .

The women with whom I surround myself are always too feminine for me. Their ability to seduce my emotion is there even when they don’t try.

. . .

They helped Hope to get all the shopping and stuff done, though I’m sure more time was spent just browsing the clothing, women do that a lot. Too much for my liking.

White Bo really gets women, doesn’t he? He and his family also have some choice ideas about Mexicans. For reference, his wife is Mexican.

She then rose and made her way to our table, it was my “Wife” that I told my brother about.
“Figures you would end up with the Mexican, for the summer.”

and

“I know I said you could date a Mexican but I didn’t think you actually would.” My mom pointed out, hope just laughed in response.
“Well, I warned you I was going to try my hardest to date, or even possibly marry one.” I reminded her.

and

”You know for a Mexican you sure don’t fight that much.”

Ay-ay-ay.

With that, I must take my leave before I hit the Goodreads review character limit. I didn't even get to describe the courtroom scene during which the judge switches genders. I am pleased to report that, for me, this falls into the "so bad it's good" category; I got many unintentional laughs out of it, thus of which I grant it two stars.

(Later upgraded to 5 stars because why the hell not?) (Later downgraded back to 2 stars again because at this point my rating isn't going to change whether or not the author ever puts out the next book he's been working on. That imagined encouragement was the real secret reason for the higher rating. But whatever the stars, this book has stayed in my heart and mind for years; isn't that the best review of all?)
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May 19, 2024 Bryan Woerner rated it did not like it

Shelves: 372-pages

Not the worst book I’ve read in this bad book journey. It’s saving grace is that it’s still more coherent than Shadow Moon, and that’s saying something

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