by Kit Whitfield
Whitfield's first novel. Not nearly as interesting or well written as In Great Waters, and awkwardly structured in a number of ways, but still worth reading. The story takes a noir first person account. The protagonist is a freak, a racial minority, one of the less than 1% of the population that because of early development brain injury doesn't transofrm into a werewolf each night like regular people. Regular humans ("bareback" is the common slur) are despised by wider society yet still vital to it in keeping things locked down on full moon and minimizing general damage. The book explores this dual role, the psychological issues that emerge from this, and a specific mystery and wider conspiracy that the protagonist gets involved with.
The book is overly padded and awkwardly written at points, and doesn't do nearly enough to make the main character interesting or sympathetic, despite an intriguing position. Still, the setting is quite innovative and the ultimately playing out of the main theme makes for an interesting use of the hardboiled detective standpoint. It shows the same framework as In Great Waters in reversing the normal expectation of the Masquerade, instead taking a fantasy premise and rewriting the world around it. What’s most striking in this layout, though, is how much doesn’t change, how the world largely looks the same at first glance despite almost everyone being a werewolf. That backdrop make the moments of transofrmation more vivid, exciting and creepier, bringing in a real edge to the presentation of what human becomes beast means. Also, approrpriately, the real monstrosity becomes the calm, collected and utterly rational form of certain werewolves.
Different enough in tone to make me very curious where Whitfield will go next. This and In Great Waters share a certain measure of cynicism with social problems, the deconstructing of stock fantasy elements in an unfamiliar and creative ways, and taking fantasy to make a full-fledged alternate history, but beyond that are very different works. Maybe next there can be fairies or some other under-developed fantasy force as the basis for a society? Most authors never seem to tackle anything except vampires.
Better than: Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
Worse than: In Great Waters by Kit Whitfeld
Showing posts with label whitfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whitfield. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
In Great Waters
In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield
An astounding book, highly recommended. Takes what seems light the most silly, bending-suspension-of-disbelief premise--mermaids as the central factor in the transformation of European society--and weaves an intense and satisfying story from it.
Whitfield is perhaps one of the ultimate subverters of the Masquerade, and whole theme of hidden fantasy within the present world. Her scenario takes just the opposite assumption--posit the existence of a fantasy element, even one as detached and minor as mermaids and it eventually transforms everything. In her novel contact with "deepsmen" and humans around the Renaissance lead to one Venitian family brining them openly into full on political and military conflict, leading to widespread rise and fall of different dynasties across Europe.
It is then a fantasy novel without magic, but with the presence of non-humans leading to a full-fledged alternate history that alters a lot of patterns for intrigue, culture and daily life. In Great Waters isn't about how that change is established. This element is given as backstory, instead it focuses on a specific regional situation several hundred years later where the change has already been made and everyone accepts the uses of human royalty linking politically to deepsmen and the level of intrigue for both species is deeply intertwined. It's refershing to see a strange fantasy situation taken for granted, as part of the enviornment that people have to work within. Characters in the novel find the arrangement inconvenient at points, but it's an accepted part of the sider environment with a lot of practical force behind it. The danger isn't that spurring an alliance with deepsmen will cause, for instance, England to get wiped out by them--even for an island country the water environment doesn't pose that kind of existential threat, there's simply no incentive for the deepsmen en masse to go up on land. Rather, the danger is that France with an alliance of humans and deepsmen will gain a compelling advance in navy and commerce, and that this development will lead to the decline of England's political position. In a way the book works precisely in deflating expectations of wonder and awe, by having characters accept their world largely as it is, as the unpredictable but rational situation they are accustomed to. By refraining from the moments of horror or amazement at the setup of the co-existing environments (although there is a lot of surprise when water and land societies co-mingle directly) it brings a greater sense of credibility to the setting, while also emphasizing awe in the reader for the lengths of worldbuilding.
In another strength the deepsmen are entwined with humanity but they haven't become human, and in the story told half from the point of view of one we see a very different frame of reference. It's not intrinsically better than humanity or worse--it's a psychology framed by a different environment that has a different take on basic things like family, sex and competition. One way this contrast comes up is religion--the deepsmen character, when required for social position to profess at least a nominal acceptance of God and the church refuses flat out, considering the whole concept absurd. Whitfield doesn't do the obvious with that setup, and refrains from either endorsing a theist or atheist viewpoint. Instead that framing is used to explore how separate the two viewpoints are in this case, how different the non-belief is from the human types of rejection of religion that generally occur. Highly different and yet symbiotic, such is the situation between the two species and it makes for a very stron gpremise.
The tone of the story is unsentimental and at points rather cold, and it refuses to implement the type of romantic atmosphere one would expect from the drawn out relationship at the core of the book's structure. It's not a depressing or particularly pessimistic book though, and feels more like a realistic exploration of the strange point of departure, with a range of accompanying human virtues, vices, betrayals and loyalties. Excellent writing, very engaging narrative, and some very creative ideas at work. However the point I found it most effective was in characterization, making an overall atmosphere, and showing a protagonist that doesn't share common human assumptions in a number of ways. There's a pleasing ambiguity across most of the book, it being quite unclear what will happen next or how the larger issues of the setting will play themselves out.
I'd say this book is up there with the very best of 2009, and it made it onto my Hugo nomination list for the year. Didn't get on, though, more's the pity. This point was one in my reading where I was reading a lot of recommendations for unfamiliar authors in fantasy and science fiction, and as the last half-dozen posts shows a number of these had modest or significant failure. It was good to hit a stark, flat out excellent book, one that shows speculative fiction can blow the lid off our assumptions and normal patterns and deliver a story extremely unique and strange, but at the same time fully coherent and 'realistic'.
Better than: Legacy by Greg Bear
Worse than: The Scar by China Mieville.
An astounding book, highly recommended. Takes what seems light the most silly, bending-suspension-of-disbelief premise--mermaids as the central factor in the transformation of European society--and weaves an intense and satisfying story from it.
Whitfield is perhaps one of the ultimate subverters of the Masquerade, and whole theme of hidden fantasy within the present world. Her scenario takes just the opposite assumption--posit the existence of a fantasy element, even one as detached and minor as mermaids and it eventually transforms everything. In her novel contact with "deepsmen" and humans around the Renaissance lead to one Venitian family brining them openly into full on political and military conflict, leading to widespread rise and fall of different dynasties across Europe.
It is then a fantasy novel without magic, but with the presence of non-humans leading to a full-fledged alternate history that alters a lot of patterns for intrigue, culture and daily life. In Great Waters isn't about how that change is established. This element is given as backstory, instead it focuses on a specific regional situation several hundred years later where the change has already been made and everyone accepts the uses of human royalty linking politically to deepsmen and the level of intrigue for both species is deeply intertwined. It's refershing to see a strange fantasy situation taken for granted, as part of the enviornment that people have to work within. Characters in the novel find the arrangement inconvenient at points, but it's an accepted part of the sider environment with a lot of practical force behind it. The danger isn't that spurring an alliance with deepsmen will cause, for instance, England to get wiped out by them--even for an island country the water environment doesn't pose that kind of existential threat, there's simply no incentive for the deepsmen en masse to go up on land. Rather, the danger is that France with an alliance of humans and deepsmen will gain a compelling advance in navy and commerce, and that this development will lead to the decline of England's political position. In a way the book works precisely in deflating expectations of wonder and awe, by having characters accept their world largely as it is, as the unpredictable but rational situation they are accustomed to. By refraining from the moments of horror or amazement at the setup of the co-existing environments (although there is a lot of surprise when water and land societies co-mingle directly) it brings a greater sense of credibility to the setting, while also emphasizing awe in the reader for the lengths of worldbuilding.
In another strength the deepsmen are entwined with humanity but they haven't become human, and in the story told half from the point of view of one we see a very different frame of reference. It's not intrinsically better than humanity or worse--it's a psychology framed by a different environment that has a different take on basic things like family, sex and competition. One way this contrast comes up is religion--the deepsmen character, when required for social position to profess at least a nominal acceptance of God and the church refuses flat out, considering the whole concept absurd. Whitfield doesn't do the obvious with that setup, and refrains from either endorsing a theist or atheist viewpoint. Instead that framing is used to explore how separate the two viewpoints are in this case, how different the non-belief is from the human types of rejection of religion that generally occur. Highly different and yet symbiotic, such is the situation between the two species and it makes for a very stron gpremise.
The tone of the story is unsentimental and at points rather cold, and it refuses to implement the type of romantic atmosphere one would expect from the drawn out relationship at the core of the book's structure. It's not a depressing or particularly pessimistic book though, and feels more like a realistic exploration of the strange point of departure, with a range of accompanying human virtues, vices, betrayals and loyalties. Excellent writing, very engaging narrative, and some very creative ideas at work. However the point I found it most effective was in characterization, making an overall atmosphere, and showing a protagonist that doesn't share common human assumptions in a number of ways. There's a pleasing ambiguity across most of the book, it being quite unclear what will happen next or how the larger issues of the setting will play themselves out.
I'd say this book is up there with the very best of 2009, and it made it onto my Hugo nomination list for the year. Didn't get on, though, more's the pity. This point was one in my reading where I was reading a lot of recommendations for unfamiliar authors in fantasy and science fiction, and as the last half-dozen posts shows a number of these had modest or significant failure. It was good to hit a stark, flat out excellent book, one that shows speculative fiction can blow the lid off our assumptions and normal patterns and deliver a story extremely unique and strange, but at the same time fully coherent and 'realistic'.
Better than: Legacy by Greg Bear
Worse than: The Scar by China Mieville.
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