"Life teaches us to do what is impossible." — Death and Devices
Cole Erickson is a smart, ambitious high school junior attending an elite private school in present-day Pittsburgh. Appropriately, Vendler Academy is a converted neo-Gothic Kirkbride Plan insane asylum (shiver)—alleged by generations of students to be haunted by the ghosts of its former, mentally ill inhabitants. But to Cole, Vendler is “the one place on earth that felt like home.”
Because real home doesn’t. Cole lives with his divorced, alcoholic father, while his mother is remarried, preoccupied, and living in another state. The cruelly dysfunctional family dynamic and Cole’s inevitable emotional deprivations and insecurities help us understand his turbo-charged academic focus and ultimate goal of working as an elite employee of the Orien Saint-Pierre Lab, the country’s most respected research hub for artificial intelligence. It’s a given that our unsuspecting hero might then be willing to do almost anything to obtain a high school internship slot the diabolically subtle Dr. Saint-Pierre is offering at The Lab. What could go wrong?
Saint-Pierre (a guy you love to hate, but aren’t exactly sure when you started to) dangles the internship before Cole like a golden carrot, on the condition Cole can solve a mystery locked in the bowels of Vendler Academy, once hidden there by the school’s occult-driven founder. In a scrumptious irony, the mysterious Saint-Pierre believes Vendler’s secret will enable him to dramatically improve his signature AI product, Kronos, by giving it the ability to actually love. Yes, love among the ruins.
Vander Wall skillfully develops the interplay of temperament between Cole and his three young friends, who jump into the plot with the vigor of that demographic who can look great even without sleep. Besides Cole’s cautious, calculating personality, Jude is Cole’s loyal, curmudgeonly best friend, sweet Bridget the subdued voice of conscience and reason (and Cole’s love interest), with well-heeled, artistic Joanna fueling their adventures with sanguine energy as they descend into the subterranean, orchestrated reality below the school’s foundations. What they find there is pretty fascinating and provides food for thought about the mixture of AI technology with possible occult forces. The reader might be encouraged to ask: if an AI has its origins in a morally corrupt creator, can that AI ever have ethical applications? Some may never care what the answer is, but all of us should.
Unlike some Dark Academia, where moral ambiguity and even nihilism trend, there is a lighter and abiding feel to this story. Cole and his friends come to real moral conclusions slowly and without affectation. They aren’t spared abuse, exploitation, or other consequences of immersing themselves into the world of human narcissists, unseen demons, and complicated technology. It’s a story loaded with symbols about real life and the impossible things we have to learn.
I especially enjoyed the story’s imagery and the way the hyper-tense academic focus of Vendler Academy drives Cole to discover Vendler’s secret and hopefully satisfy Orien Saint-Pierre. Of his fellow students, Cole observes that “They looked like automatons, as if their whole lives they had sat in shadowy classrooms with nothing to see by but iridescent screens and nothing to breathe but formaldehyde that sterilized their synapses.” Everywhere is danger, even in his own home, and there seems to be far too much of everything for one high school junior to learn or feel. “A twig snapped under Cole’s foot, and the forest groaned from the pain of it.”
Descriptions of even peripheral characters keep us guessing about who-done-what and where we should actually focus, augmenting the sense of mystery: “It was said that her ceaseless shuffling of pages had eroded all trace of unique personal history, making it impossible for the police to get a distinct fingerprint.”
The story has real value for young readers as Cole and his friends learn to refine true friendship and reflect on their own drives and tendencies as they maneuver the realms of evil and ambition. As to the requisite goriness, a motif of blood sacrifice is employed, and there are scenes involving physical and psychological abuse. The villains’ devouringly complex characters are well rendered, and Vander Wall is crazy-good with dialogue. She’s also obviously got personal maturity, reflected in her good-guy characters without the slightest cheesiness.
Though the story satisfactorily checks all the genre boxes of academia, mystery, and intellectualism, I was even more interested by the unraveling darkness around Cole and his father. Internship or not, AI or not, the heart of life is relationship, and relationships can go remarkably sideways. Vander Wall thoughtfully handles the brutal unpredictability of living with an addictive parent in ways younger readers struggling with the same thing may appreciate.
There’s everything to like about this smart, well-structured debut mystery. The kids are interesting and likeable, and the finesse of Cole’s own character arc will get under your skin. I was sad when, like all good things, the story came to an end. Happily, the last chapter hints at what will be an excellent sequel.
To learn more about Death and Devices, visit https://vanderwallstudios.com/story/ or go to Anna’s Kickstarter page.
Stones of Fire, Jean Hoefling’s third book in the biblical fantasy series Chronicles of Genesis, is an Amazon #1 Best Seller. Find her at www.jeanhoefling.com