Circus of Dr Lao

The first fantasy story that I read was Terry Goodkinds series the Wizard’s First Rule, I thought it was very misogynistic in hindsight, but I still enjoyed it very much. It hit a lot of fantasy check boxes for me and the novels were very dense yet immersive as well. The Circus of Dr. Lao is very different kind of fantasy story in comparison, rather than a tale about “the chosen one”, this is about a circus that comes to town that has a myriad of mythological creatures. What makes it really interesting is the town in Arizona the circus visits. I instantly imagined the accents of the townspeople there, and found myself laughing often at that fact. Which I think is certainly a showcase in the skill of Charles G Finney, along with that is the way the perspectives of the townspeople is depicted when associated with the circus. It seemed like each person in town was inexplicably drawn to the circus, even though they were not only skeptical and dismissive towards it. I was very interested in each of the creature’s backstories and how Dr. Lao came to acquire them, this would then be followed by the townspeople’s reaction to the spectacle, and in some cases punishment for dismissing the creatures or attractions as fake. I just loved how this story was written, it has a sharp humor and descriptions I thought were brief yet very informative. I think that longer books take a great deal of time in describing everything because they have the page count to do so, but Charles Finney’s writing seemed very decisive and to the point, which I very much appreciated.