The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Forging Ahead (Spellcraft 10)
By Jordan Castillo Price
Published by the author
Four stars

I wonder if I’ve commented before that this series would make a great sit-com on television—sort of a contemporary take on Bewitched, or even more recently, the Wizards of Waverly Place.

The Penn family is a hot mess; but apparently that’s not atypical of the magical denizens of the fictional town of Pinyin Bay. They tend not to play by the rules of the handless world (i.e. non-magical), and thus maintain a sometimes fraught balance between community engagement and eccentric lawlessness.

For all the fact that he is a brilliant Scrivener—someone who writes spells that work and work well—Dixon is an oddball with the attention span of a cockatoo (and I say that because his pet cockatoo Meringue plays a significant role in this story). His boyfriend (grown-man-friend, LOL) Yuri is both more mature and less impulsive, but even he seems to be fairly comfortable with the makeshift lifestyle of Pinyin Bay’s magical aristocracy. OF course, Yuri is also a brilliant Seer—the visual part of any good spell being its Seen (another play on words I really love).

It's not just Dixon and Yuri, however, since his whole family is the same, from his cousin Sabina to his mother Florica; as are the various other leading lights of the magical community (the Stranges and the Shirques). Everything seems just a little off-balance and odd, which is both normal and a point of some pride.

The core comic device in this book is the attempt to forge a signature on an unsigned painting that will make it hugely valuable (hence the title). The logical aspect of the plot is entirely accidental, as so much in this world seems to be. The whole purpose of all of Dixon and Yuri’s adventures seems to be to underscore the importance of family in creating a world where everybody is embraced for who they are.

To rephrase my opening line: I would love to see a television series made of these books, because they don’t make a lot of sense, but they are truly a lot of fun.