Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal

​      Ok, so here’s a perfect instance of stepping up one’s game. The author’s previous book, Women’s World, was perfectly decent and…that’s about it. Cute silliness or silly cuteness presenting itself as the notes on the apocalypse with only women left. The jokes are amusing, but fairly basic and obvious. Enter Cyclops and watch the author’s game go up and up and up.
      Guess sometimes one just needs to find a proper subject to let themselves shine…because this was lovely. Beaming up from cute and silly into charming and clever.
      The episodic structure of this book is quite similar to Women’s World, only now it’s a Cyclopean World or more like a world where Cyclops live side by side with Two-Eyes and must deal with all sorts of prejudice and navigate the world that isn’t always built for them. Which isn’t merely charmingly whimsical, it’s also a very clever tool to have conversations about race, prejudice, sexism, isolation, belonging, etc. Only where so many books do it in a straight-forward heavy-handed way and allow the message to overwhelm the book, here the author gets to do in through metaphors and allegories. Subtlety is a fine art and should be utilized more. And lo and behold, here it is, among these adorable cartoons. It’s so nice, so refreshing to see someone actually tackling important and timely subjects topics this way in this day and age of overwhelming confessional style sincerity and nuance-free earnestness.
        There’s also quite a considerable amount of world-building or maybe more like world adjusting to fit the Cyclops in it. A lot of thought obviously went into it, from characters’ names to backstory, read the extensive afterword and be impressed.
         All in all, this was definitely a winner and a dramatic improvement upon its predecessor. Less pages, more to say. Still a very quick read and absolutely worth it. Recommended.