I’ve just finished reading (albeit several months late) Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter (Fourth Estate, $24.95) and I’m experiencing immediate feelings of rather annoyed anxiety brought about by the well-documented abruptness of the ending. I feel like having a bit of a tanty, actually. It’s not fair! I could take it up with her in our upcoming e-interview, but people have already been there and she’ll sigh if I do. But there are other questions …

I suppose I’d better start at the beginning. Right from the first few pages, I found my brow furrowed because of the Elizabeth’s description of the setting of the novel. One minute you think you have it pinned as NZ with mostly botanical references such as flax, beech forests, spinifex and pink-flowering ice plants on the beach etc, plus certain place names: Awa Inlet for example. And, rather cheekily, there are excerpts on the history of the area from a book named Southland, by one Dr Michael King.

But then there are other place names remniscent of ye olde Europe, or indeed The Shire in Lord of the Rings – Doorhandle, Tricksy Bend. The two fathers have weird names: Tziga and Chorley; the two teenage girls, Rose and Laura, call their fathers ‘Da’. That’s just not kiwi. And the era – is it in the past or some kind of post-apocalyptic future? There are horses and carts and steam trains, but things are measured in metres. I found myself being quite … niggled by all this, but not necessarily unpleasantly. Besides, I have a strong suspicion that it’s completely intentional, and I’ve always been absolutely fine about being intellectually toyed with by Elizabeth Knox.

The concept of this book is sheer Knox in its unpredictability and complexity: an invisible border to a strange, arid ‘Place’ is discovered in this contradictory landscape, which can only be magically entered (you simply vanish into thin air) by people who are destined to be Dreamhunters. Is it gene, vocation? Nobody knows why some people can and others can’t go there, or why/how the Place exists. It’s described as a kind of ‘fold in the map’.

Inside the Place, dreams of all kinds (including – oh yes – hideous nightmares) can be ‘caught’, then the Dreamhunters can come out and peddle the dreams to those with the money to buy. The best Dreamhunters can project their dreams so that everyone within a certain radius or ‘penumbra’ dreams the same thing.

This is the basic hat, but from it Knox (and hopefully some lucky producer) has pulled a whole marketing executive’s dream – there are the luxurious, opulent Dream Palaces where the rich and the lucky go to snore happily in unison for a start. Then of course, one must have the latest sleepwear (more fashion description could have gone on here) and goodness – how is one to limit oneself to just one dream a month, or even a week?

There are dreams with natural highs – Starry Beach and Wild River, and all-too-human ones – Stately Lady and ahem, Big Member. This particular dream gets the briefest of mentions, with a nod to the supposed age of the readers (it’s pitched at 13-years-olds). I’m not saying that this angle should be er, expanded, but you gotta admit, it’s got legs.

So why decide to pitch this book to a young adult market? I’m pretty sure many teenagers could find her (delectably) dense, meaty prose very challenging. And by doing it, she’s closed doors on herself that with an adult readership could be wide open – she does do very good, classy, nicely understated erotica after all. The Vintner’s Luck? You’re not telling me that Xas the angel is not sex on wings? And Daylight? I mean, phwoar. So? I shall ask.

Politics of course are involved – ain’t no way any Government is going to miss out on this highly taxable/exploitable commodity. In fact, the extent to which the Dream Regulatory Body has become involved is rather sinister and this is at the root of the plot. Something shady’s going on around the disappearance of her father, and it’s up to Laura to find out what it is.

This is a strong theme in the novel, and a possible reason for the young-adult target. I suppose it’s a chicken and egg scenario, but if Elizabeth first had the idea of these two girl cousins doing a kind of Nancy Drew double-act as the main theme of the story, then I guess it would follow that you’d go with the younger audience. It’s certainly not jolly enough to jump on the Harry Potter bandwagon. Pointless to speculate.

I couldn’t put this book down, although OK – I have to do a bit of negative, as I’m such a gusher. So – perhaps because of the contradictory environment it felt to me a bit … hurried. Some things didn’t quite add up, as though it hadn’t been quite polished enough. I feel like I missed points because it wasn’t really clear. But it will certainly stand another reading and it’s always flattering, as all good writers know, to give the reader the benefit of the doubt, even if it turns out that one perhaps ought to have been doubtful after all. I also felt Laura’s character to be a bit flat, and her brilliant Dreamhunter aunt disappointingly staunch, especially with her own daughter, Rose. I worried about both girls – there could have been a little bit of cosy feminine respite. I guess a Mum’s gotta do what a Mum’s gotta do. I wondered: is this how Elizabeth feels about her work perhaps?

There are other gasp-worthy magical happenings of a Mary Shelley nature going on, but hell, I can’t give it all away. There is, in fact, so much going on, so many complex relationships worth examining, that this must surely run and run. But, as I said, the climax, (which is really pretty horrific, again I wonder if teenagers would handle it without having, well, nightmares) leaves you feeling as battered as the characters, then the book just stops. Jeez, it’s one way of getting a body to be queuing outside bookshops for the sequel. And despite my meagre moans, I’m damn sure I will be. Just one more thing – or have I already said it? Please, someone (Peter, are you listening?) – make a movie out of this book.