“The Tower in the Sea” is a new book from B. Mure, set in the world of Ismyre. Following a young student as they learn about the divination and deal with strange dreams, it creates a short, cozy reading experience. But, is being cozy enough? Some mild spoilers follow in the review.
Written and Illustrated by B. Mure
B. Mure returns to the world of Ismyre for another quiet and fantastical mystery tale, set in an old world of ordinary magic.Off the coast of Ismyre, a group of illicit magicians have been gathering for years, schooling others in the ways of long forgotten divinations. From high up in this forbidden home, a young scholar keeps dreaming visions of a terrible future and looks out across the ocean for answers…
Over its 90 pages, B. Mure has created a world that feels lived in, and one that you want to stay in for as long as possible. “The Tower in the Sea” is a beautiful book. Each page is painted with soft watercolors, giving the whole book a cozy, approachable feel. The book takes place on an island, off the coast of Ismyre, in a school of ancient magic. Like many other magical boarding schools, this ends up feeling like a place you would want to call home. Somewhere that you could allow yourself to be wrapped up in its stone walls, and become one of the students living there, letting the comfortable watercolors splash over you daily.
But, despite the world that it has created, “The Tower in the Sea” is almost too short a book for you to ever really get comfortable in its setting. As a reader, you feel yourself being drawn into the world that is created, but as soon as you are in, starting to get a feel for things and feel at home, the book ends.
“The Tower in the Sea” is populated with animal people, which lend to its soft, cozy aesthetic. The book’s main character is Miriam, a small, young animal person, that has just been brought to the school of diviners, to learn the art of divination. And while she does learn the basics of seeing the future, she is also plagued by dreams of an incoming apocalypse that is coming for the world around her. And despite the fact that she lives in a school full of people looking into the future, seeing an impending catastrophe is definitely out of the ordinary.
Even with this omen hanging over Miriam, there is a weightlessness to “The Tower in the Sea.” Though the stakes are technically world ending, it never feels like anyone is in any real danger. In some ways this works to the books favor. It creates that atmosphere of comfortability. When nothing is at stake, it’s easy to settle into the rhythms and flows of daily life, to become at home with a setting. In other ways, it leaves the book feeling purposeless.
Sure, there are visions of a world falling apart. But there is never any immediacy to them. There is just an impending doom that, as much as the character of Miriam seems to struggle with it, doesn’t seem especially important to the narrative at hand. The story breezes through “The Tower in the Sea,” drifting passed and waving, but not making any particular impact.
Which is strange, because this is a short book, and most of the pages are actually devoted to this main plot. Maybe the reason it feels so weightless is that we are not given more time to spend with the school, with Miriam growing, learning more about her powers, and struggling with whether she should be leaving this place or not. Because as it stands currently, the events of “The Tower in the Sea” just seem to happen, and then the book ends.
I won’t get too deep into specifics about the ending of the book. But the point in the story that the book reaches by its final pages feel like it’s just the beginning of a story. I don’t know if there is a direct sequel planned to “The Tower in the Sea,” but I hope there is, because as it stands, the book seems to end right as the story is getting started. It feels almost as if the book needed to end earlier in this story, spending more time at this school, letting us see the characters interact more, or have its pace picked up considerably, moving the story along at a much quicker pace, so that the promise of adventure that ends this book is actually realized inside it.
And yet, despite all my issues with the plotting and story of “The Tower in the Sea,” I still came away liking most of the time that I spent with it. Individual pages and panels are beautiful, the watercolor aesthetic, and the fun designs of all the different animal characters make the book a joy to look at. In the moment to moment, this is a book that I really loved reading.
When I look at “The Tower in the Sea” as a whole, though, it left me wanting. It feels like the focus of the story is off, having both told too much and too little of its tale. I hope that, if there is a sequel, it will be able to remedy some of these issues. Picking up where this story left off, making this feel like something a bit more complete. But as it stands now, “The Tower in the Sea” left me feeling like it was weightless and incomplete.
