One of the reasons I loved spending time in London, other than the food, was the opportunity to browse through their wonderful book shops. While some of my beloved bargains were the product of many hours of sifting through the many different thrift shops scattered liberally around the city, at least one of the books I brought home was found in decidedly more urbane surroundings.
Prior to embarking on a writing career, Steph Swainston was a qualified archaeologist who spent some time as an assistant researcher in a firm that seeks to develop more medical applications for cannabis. Her writing, as such, is both rivetingly romantic (in the classical sense of the word) and mind-numbingly trippy. It is the almost hallucinogenic loveliness of her fully fleshed out, yet at times, spiritually emaciated characters and the strange worlds that they inhabit that have prompted critics to label her as one of the finest proponents of the New Weird. Her mixture of science fiction and fantasy, sprinkled liberally with the more ersatz elements of Jack Kerouac's road fantasies almost defies convention. When I picked up her first book, The Year of Our War, the feeling of alienation generated by the willful suspension between two well-worn literary genres almost wore me out. Happily, I shook off the disorientation and soldiered on. I haven't looked back since.
The premise is rather straightforward. A benevolent Emperor sustains the three humanoid races that populate a medieval world with the help of a circle of fifty immortal warriors. These immortal warriors are the very best at what they do, and they remain immortal for as long as they continue to prove to be the best at what they do. Jant Shira, also known as Comet, is an Immortal who is horribly addicted to a hallucinatory drug called "cat." He is also, due to his mixed heritage, the only being in the world who can fly. Comet, the Messenger, finds out that taking enormous amounts of "cat" allows him access to an alternate universe, where he has discovered the Insects' secret. Unfortunately, his ability to make use of this information is hindered by the fact that when his addiction to "cat" is threatening to consume what is left of his ability to be the Messenger.
While the prose often struggles to approach the rarefied heights that Jant scales so easily despite his addiction, it is serviceable, and the audacity with which Swainston carves out worlds just a degree or two north of what could be termed sane is truly entertaining. I would recommend this series for anyone who wants their epic science fiction fantasy kick to contain something a little stronger.
Photo Credits:
Picture of The Modern World comes courtesy of Dave Brendon's Fantasy & Sci-Fi Weblog.
4 comments:
Sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out. If you are looking for good non-fiction reads I love Tracy Kidder. Have u read him? He wrote the Soul of a New Machine (which won a Pulitzer) and one of my faves Mountains Beyond Mountains. He has a new book out Strength in What Remains.
Tracy Kidder sounds like a good read. Thanks Tweet!
They should find a new name for the subgenre, because New Weird isn't really too weird at all in this day and age.
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