The Language of Power, Rosemary Kirstein

This is a difficult book to review because I'm certain it's part of a series, and I haven't read the other books. Not that the author doesn't attempt to gloss it with memories, etc., but I had the distinct feeling that there was more a reader could know about the characters and their relationships than was explained here. 

Even worse, now I'm worried that I'm spoiled for the first (?) books. 

Those concerns aside, there was still much about this series that I liked. In a post-tech world, wizards control the magic, not always to the good of others. 

Rowan is a Steerswoman, and all must answer her questions, as she must answer those posed to her. She is also a type of heroine of which I am quite fond, not a sweet ingenue, but a woman who has lived fully and brings her wisdom and history to the game.

On a quest to investigate a wizard to whom she has ties, she is joined by her friend Bel, a woman from a people who are being slaughtered by the powers wielded by one, evil wizard. Her former mentee, a young man who was apprenticed to a wizard himself, shows up as well, on the run from his master and on a mission of his own.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It has strong feminist underpinnings, engaging characters, and a plot that probably makes more sense if one knows the backstory.

It also avoids the "royalty" cliche: these characters are working class people.  Rowan has a higher status, but it's due to education, not any benefit of her birth.

I will look for, and read, Ms. Kirstein's other books. (Not to mention I reserve the right to edit this review when I've read the other volume(s) in this series.) 3½ stars.

War, class, and the power of love: two fantasies

Passion Play, Beth Bernobich

This was one of two books I read last week which shared some underlying themes, including the effects of war, class conflict, personal growth, and the power of love.   (Don't scoff at that last.) Despite some very dark moments, the protagonist grows and changes, on a journey that's worth your time to follow.

Our young heroine is a naive but not particularly spoiled merchant's daughter. When he summarily arranges her marriage to a man that she fears, she flees. On the road, the worst happens, and the young woman is forced into a mockery of complicity in her own near-destruction. She finally flees on a nightmare journey which ends in a town that rejects her, in part because she is ragged and unwashed: poor. Deathly ill, she washes up at a whorehouse, where the proprietor takes her in.

I know what I was expecting at this point. Ha!  At every turn, the author teasingly denies (or does she?) the conventions of the romance plot. There is a whiff of fairy tale (though perhaps not the fairy tale you thought you were reading), but nothing of magic in this fantasy. 

Bernobich's characters work hard, whether in the kitchens or the counting rooms. The proprietor has larger and more dangerous ambitions than running a house of ill repute. Trust is hard come by, and attachments are chancy at best, yet the redemptive power of love – of others, of oneself – weaves powerfully through this story, which in the end is more light than darkness. Bernobich’s world building includes no comment on the genders of people who are in relationship, and she quietly comments on the inequities of class and gender, and the dislocations of war and politics, in an understated way.

Listen. I’m glad I did, and I look forward to more of this story.  

 

Under the Poppy, Kathe Koje

Koje explores the effects of poverty, war, class conflict, and the power and limits of love in a bleak milieu. Her fictional Europe is fantastical, but not fantasy. The only magic is Istvan’s art - his puppets and cynical mockery - and ultimately, the redemptive power of love.

There are no hearts of gold at the Poppy, the brothel run by Decca, Istvan’s sister, and Rupert. There is thievery, scandal, conflict, and worry. When Istvan arrives, he threatens the brittle and static situation. The damaged characters fail miserably at communication, wounding each other all the more in the process. There were points at which I felt the work partook of horror more than fantasy, so dire becomes the situation.

And yet . . . and yet. . .Koje draws these mostly unlikeable characters so skillfully that I became immersed in the story. 

This isn’t a world where male/male love goes unremarked. In fact, nothing goes unremarked by the “toffs”, or “quality”, Istvan’s sardonic reference to the upper class men who slum at the Poppy. Against a backdrop of approaching war, war’s deprivations and its’ aftermath, the Poppy and its denizens fight for their autonomy, whether money and property, or the open road. 

The women characters are well drawn but feature mostly as helpmeets and co-conspirators secondary to the plot, which revolves around the relationship of Istvan and Rupert. The point of view changes constantly, rotating through the cast while concentrating on the two men, with an epistolary luster to the narrative from time to time.

 

This is beautifully written, but not a world I’d be in a rush to revisit.