oioiiooixiii: December 2013

I have always enjoyed Gerald Brom's art. Fantasy art with a wide ranging themes, gothic and macabre, where gender sometimes seems insignificant; often ambiguous. This variegation follows through in the writing of this book. Morality becomes complex and indiscreet. This is not some "good verses bad" Disney story.

Briefly, it is a modern story involving a battle between Krampus, the Pagan elemental of Christmas, and Santa Claus, the Christian - mixed with some Norse mythology. This gets entangled with a side story about Jesse, a down and out musician, battling to save his family.

One of the reasons I felt inclined read the book, was because of the Native American aspects Brom had used for his paintings of the Belsnickels. I had feared he might have just appropriated some "cool" looking bits from native dress, but it turned out that these characters are actually of Native American origin, and because of the nature of the story, it makes perfect sense for these characters to be so.

It was the audiobook version that I consumed, and the narration by Kirby Heyborne really set the story alight. The voices and characterisations were perfect. With a few sound effects and a little less "he said - she said" parts, some of it could easily be turned into a radio play.

There is a nice epilogue where Brom describes the origins of his story, through analysis of the Krampus and Santa Claus folklore.