#4: The Bones of Faerie, by Janni Simner
Feb. 27th, 2010 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaThe Bones of Faerie, by Janni Lee Simner
(Disclaimer:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
janni is a friend of mine, although I read The Bones of Faerie before I met her.)
Before Liza was born, the world of faerie and our human world went to war. The war is long since over, but her world bears the scars: blackberry brambles invade homes and strangle their inhabitants, food plants resist the harvest, dandelions bite, and trees reach out with sinister intent. Magic—the latent malicious magic left in the plants, and pockets of wild magic left around the world—is the enemy, as are children with strands of shining-clear hair that indicates the touch of magic. All such things found within the safe confines of the village must be destroyed. Liza knows this; it is her life. But when Liza's sister is born with glass-transparent hair, and her father exposes the child on the hillside to die, everything changes. Liza's mother vanishes... and Liza's own unexpected magic power reveals itself: she is clairvoyant. And so she must flee her father and her village, and go out into the deadly danger of the faerie-touched wilderness.
I knowjanni has referred to this book as post-urban fantasy, and that's a label I like quite a bit for it. And a big part of what I like about it is the setting, the post-fantasy-apocalypse North America. It's set, not in a vague post-apoc location, but in the wilderness near St. Louis, Missouri, and though the isolated villages themselves have a culture of their own (a culture born of the vastly changed world they live in), I love that it's actually set in a specific place, that it touches on the atmosphere, the landscape, and the landmarks of a particular place. I don't even know Missouri, and I loved that the book felt set in a specific place.
I also like the way that the book focuses on the small elements of a post-apocalyptic world. The scarcity and preciousness of food; the dangers of injury and illness and the high value placed on medicine; the tremendous dangers of venturing outside the sanctuary of established enclaves. The dangers in The Bones of Faerie are the dangers of traveling in a pre- (or post-) industrial society, but magnified: rather than brigands or wild animals or hunger or exposure, it's the landscape itself that will do you in. I also just like the concept of a fantasy apocalypse: not one where science destroyed civilization, but one where magic did; not one where nature is crumbling in the face of humankind, but one where humankind is crumbling in the face of nature.
That leads me to the other thing I really like, which is Liza herself. She knows perfectly well that the world outside her village has a fairly high chance of doing her in, but she also knows (from bitter experience) that if her 'faerie' gift, her magic ability of clairvoyance, is discovered, she will also be killed. She considers the odds and takes the chance that an uncertain fate beyond the village is preferable to hiding and living in fear within the village. I like that a lot. She's smart, tough, and survival-oriented. Even when the odds are against her, she acts rather than giving in. And so, even though she's not a physical badass in the mold of, say, Alanna or Katsa, she makes my list of awesome girl characters with agency.
No book is flawless, so there are some things that twigged me. I expected more of an explanation of how and why the faerie war started than I got. And I kind of wanted more of an explanation of the fundamental difference between faeries and humans. But those are minor complaints; I'm hoping to see more of the worldbuilding in the forthcoming sequel.
I remain desperately curious about the faerie war, and what happened to faerie. When Liza crosses through the gateway, the faerie she sees on the other side appears to have been nuked out of existence. My immediate thought was to wonder whether that meant that all of faerie was bombed to oblivion, or if it was the equivalent of walking through a gateway into the middle of Hiroshima. Are there parts of faerie still semi-intact? If so, are there humans living there, just as there are faeries living among the humans on the Earth side?
I'm hoping to get more of this backstory in the next book. And more information about the faeries!
I loved that Matthew was a wolf-shapechanger, because I love werewolves. And I loved Allie in general. (It's a character type that I like a lot as a secondary character—for those of you with video game knowledge, it's the Rikku, Yuffie, Sora model, more or less—although sometimes they annoy me as main characters.)
Usually, I don't care for books that kill the cat (or dog, or whatever), because it's so often a cheap emotional yanking. And, yes, if yo'ure reading the spoilery discussion without reading the book: there's a prominent feline character who does die, and stay dead. But after the way death and resurrection was handled in the rest of the book, I didn't object in this case: it wasn't so much a heartstring pull as an indication that magic has limits, and that sometimes death isn't a terrible thing.
And now, on to a book I don't expect to like as much (although, who knows, I could be surprised): Vampire Beach: Bloodlust, which I got in a random YA book grab bag. I can't wait. ;)
(Disclaimer:
janni is a friend of mine, although I read The Bones of Faerie before I met her.)Before Liza was born, the world of faerie and our human world went to war. The war is long since over, but her world bears the scars: blackberry brambles invade homes and strangle their inhabitants, food plants resist the harvest, dandelions bite, and trees reach out with sinister intent. Magic—the latent malicious magic left in the plants, and pockets of wild magic left around the world—is the enemy, as are children with strands of shining-clear hair that indicates the touch of magic. All such things found within the safe confines of the village must be destroyed. Liza knows this; it is her life. But when Liza's sister is born with glass-transparent hair, and her father exposes the child on the hillside to die, everything changes. Liza's mother vanishes... and Liza's own unexpected magic power reveals itself: she is clairvoyant. And so she must flee her father and her village, and go out into the deadly danger of the faerie-touched wilderness.
I know
janni has referred to this book as post-urban fantasy, and that's a label I like quite a bit for it. And a big part of what I like about it is the setting, the post-fantasy-apocalypse North America. It's set, not in a vague post-apoc location, but in the wilderness near St. Louis, Missouri, and though the isolated villages themselves have a culture of their own (a culture born of the vastly changed world they live in), I love that it's actually set in a specific place, that it touches on the atmosphere, the landscape, and the landmarks of a particular place. I don't even know Missouri, and I loved that the book felt set in a specific place.I also like the way that the book focuses on the small elements of a post-apocalyptic world. The scarcity and preciousness of food; the dangers of injury and illness and the high value placed on medicine; the tremendous dangers of venturing outside the sanctuary of established enclaves. The dangers in The Bones of Faerie are the dangers of traveling in a pre- (or post-) industrial society, but magnified: rather than brigands or wild animals or hunger or exposure, it's the landscape itself that will do you in. I also just like the concept of a fantasy apocalypse: not one where science destroyed civilization, but one where magic did; not one where nature is crumbling in the face of humankind, but one where humankind is crumbling in the face of nature.
That leads me to the other thing I really like, which is Liza herself. She knows perfectly well that the world outside her village has a fairly high chance of doing her in, but she also knows (from bitter experience) that if her 'faerie' gift, her magic ability of clairvoyance, is discovered, she will also be killed. She considers the odds and takes the chance that an uncertain fate beyond the village is preferable to hiding and living in fear within the village. I like that a lot. She's smart, tough, and survival-oriented. Even when the odds are against her, she acts rather than giving in. And so, even though she's not a physical badass in the mold of, say, Alanna or Katsa, she makes my list of awesome girl characters with agency.
No book is flawless, so there are some things that twigged me. I expected more of an explanation of how and why the faerie war started than I got. And I kind of wanted more of an explanation of the fundamental difference between faeries and humans. But those are minor complaints; I'm hoping to see more of the worldbuilding in the forthcoming sequel.
I remain desperately curious about the faerie war, and what happened to faerie. When Liza crosses through the gateway, the faerie she sees on the other side appears to have been nuked out of existence. My immediate thought was to wonder whether that meant that all of faerie was bombed to oblivion, or if it was the equivalent of walking through a gateway into the middle of Hiroshima. Are there parts of faerie still semi-intact? If so, are there humans living there, just as there are faeries living among the humans on the Earth side?
I'm hoping to get more of this backstory in the next book. And more information about the faeries!
I loved that Matthew was a wolf-shapechanger, because I love werewolves. And I loved Allie in general. (It's a character type that I like a lot as a secondary character—for those of you with video game knowledge, it's the Rikku, Yuffie, Sora model, more or less—although sometimes they annoy me as main characters.)
Usually, I don't care for books that kill the cat (or dog, or whatever), because it's so often a cheap emotional yanking. And, yes, if yo'ure reading the spoilery discussion without reading the book: there's a prominent feline character who does die, and stay dead. But after the way death and resurrection was handled in the rest of the book, I didn't object in this case: it wasn't so much a heartstring pull as an indication that magic has limits, and that sometimes death isn't a terrible thing.
And now, on to a book I don't expect to like as much (although, who knows, I could be surprised): Vampire Beach: Bloodlust, which I got in a random YA book grab bag. I can't wait. ;)
