This week Sophie read a “fantasy with rules” book she had dropped part-read ages ago and now couldn’t put down. It started her thinking about fantasy again and why she loves the genre.
On Monday this week, horribly hot and awake at three in the morning, I scanned through my Kindle library looking for something compelling to read. And, buried in downloads of three or four years ago, was an intriguing fantasy, Unraveller by Frances Hardinge. Its world, and the very particular rules to be observed by visitors, gripped me immediately.
Yet when I read it before, I seemed to have come to a halt quite early and had only the vaguest memory of the story. This time, in less than a page, I realised that this was a real find and needed, nay demanded, proper attention. I forgot how hot and bad tempered I was and went back to the beginning.
It was like a glass of something wonderful: cool, sharp and blessedly refreshing. The deeper I plunged into the story, the stranger it got. And always there was that bite of compelling strangeness that I can never resist.
Prologue Risks
As I reluctantly put the book down to apply myself to work, I wondered why on earth I hadn’t steamed through this fabulous story first time round. Life must have got in the way, as it does.
But then why didn’t I rush back to it when the crisis of the moment (now long forgotten; I must remember that the next time I panic over something!) brought disaster or passed? On reflection, I suspect it was the book’s Prologue.
I once had a very dear and (mostly) reliable editor who absolutely hated prologues and refused to let me have one. Ever. In her view they were slow and either boring, confusing, or too clever by half. If the latter, then the unfortunate reader read all the ensuing chapters holding her (or his) breath, as it were, waiting for the reveal of why the damn Prologue was important. “When,” said Jacqui, austerely, “she should be getting to know our Hero and investing in his future.”
I have read many prologues that support her argument.
Prologue to Unraveller
But that is not the case with Unraveller. It is much more interesting than any of those. Though it is undoubtedly clever and has a nice laconic wit about it, too.
This Prologue is, quite simply, a Note to Travellers. Think the sort of thing you get if you go on a birdwatching holiday: description of various habitats in this new place; instruction on kit; warnings of local hazards; a bit of local colour and a general forecast of what you might see. Well, encounter is probably better word. They’re all there, along with a nicely ironic tone about the Pact that the all-important merchants have made to keep the place stable.
For this Prologue is much more a warning than an information guide. No self-respecting tour operator would risk delivering details so alarming. We are in a country where there is a place called the Wilds where Strange Things live, including the Little Brothers who look like spiders and aren’t.
They “are friends to weavers and craftsmen, apparently. They also seek out those consumed by rage or hatred, and gift them with a curse. The curse then nestles in the host’s soul like an unhatched egg, growing in power, until the curser is ready to unleash it upon an enemy.”
And this prologue comes with a sting in the tail. …perhaps you will decide that all the stories of the Wilds and the Raddith cursers were invented to entertain tourists. At night, when you see a many-legged shape scuttle across the ceiling of your bedchamber, you will tell yourself that it is a spider, only a spider.
(It is not.)
Definitely not a story for arachnophobes, I suggest.
And lo, we are off into Chapter One, entitled “Blame”, and our hero is about to lose his temper.
On second thoughts, maybe it was not the lengthy Note to Travellers that slowed me down and left me un-engaged. Maybe it was the hint of serious horror to come. Sometimes I’m a bit of a coward.
Fantasy with Rules
Readers of this blog will know that I read quite a lot of fantasy and take it very seriously. I think one of the reasons that I like it is that, in general, the rules of the fantasy world are clear and it’s very clear when people, whether visitor or resident, break them.
That holds true for the action adventure Murderbot series (by Martha Wells, with fabulous truculent renegade near-robot problem-solving hero). Also for the Monk and Robot Series by Becky Chambers (less murder, more questing, mostly to determine what humans want). The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula le Guin, The Goblin Emperor and the spin-off/sequels about the Witness for the Dead, the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold all are fantasy with rules, too.
For me, one of the great pleasures of reading fantasy at the moment is exactly that. The good writers have told me the rules. I’m not spinning in a hopeless vortex, trying to understand the basics of what drives so many people to feel and act as they do. Which is where I am in real life.
Maybe it’s because there’s no sign of significant social media in any of the fantasy novels I really love.
Unraveller Fantasy with Rules
The world of Unraveller holds up a mirror to our own First world mercantilist society. It’s a make-do-and-mend sort of place. When you have a wild place and strange powerful non-humans, you make a treaty with them. And police the outcome by imprisoning unfortunate recipient of one of the Little Brothers’ curse eggs.
Kellen, the Unraveller, can undo curses. This is exceptional and he does it for payment. He also hates the mostly rich merchants who can afford his services and constantly loses his temper as a result. Nettle, his quiet companion, can sometimes calm him down so that they don’t always end in gaol. Not always, however. He is reckless. She is prudent, at least most of the time.
This is a book about choices and helplessness, honesty and discretion, loyalty and betrayal. Debts that can’t be voided except by death. The Bookbinders, before whom you swear to unreleasable bargains, are genuinely chilling.
If you need time out from the News and the crises of everyday, I recommend it whole-heartedly.
Sophie
I’ve never really thought about “fantasy with rules” being presented to the reader early on. And I’m a big fan of prologues, as long as they’re done well and don’t hand you everything on a plate. I want them to intrigue, and to raise a question or two. Sometimes they set up the “point of change” that opens the story.
As for “the rules” in a fantasy novel, a good writer can show you those in the first few pages. For instance in T Kingfisher’s “Paladin series” you know very early on that the paladins’ god has died and they’re a bit rudderless, so they’re doing jobs for the White Rat.
I’m a big fantasy reader too, but am also a wimp so avoid the really scary stuff. At the opposite end of that spectrum is “cosy fantasy” like Legends and Lattes, which is about an orc opening a coffee shop. Maybe a bit too cosy.
I love Juliet Marillier’s books, lyrical writing and no matter how dark she (occasionally) gets, she always leads you back into the light. And I don’t know how often I’ve reread Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Penric’s Demon” series, as well asherb other books. And I’ve always loved classics like the Dragons of Pern series, and the Darkover series and many more.
Some of the more recent fantasy (called romantasy) I find less pleasing — worlds that make no sense to me — inconsistent rules — and so much violence! Not for me. I’d rather go back to Penric and his Demon, who is a collection of dead women who live in his head giving him advice. If you’ve never read it, try the first one. It’s delightful.
I love the Paladin books Anne and try to keep an eye out for her new releases – including the children’s books published asUrsula Vernon. In fact I now see there’s a sequel to Swordheart due out very soon. Shall go and pre-order instantly. Have to admit that I’ve tried one of her school of Edgar Allan Poe titles and probably won’t go back there again. (I’m v. susceptible to nightmares these days.) But apart from that she’s an auto buy. And I agree, she lets you into the rules of her world very skilfully, a little at a time.
I love Penric and Des too, though I think I may have a missed a couple in the sequence. Juliet Marillier is new to me and I shall immediately seek her out.
Did you ever read The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown. It’s much loved old favourite of mine, a truly battered paperback with a few pages fraying at the corners from much handling, about a group of hobbled characters who form a band of outcasts on a quest. I bought in the BEB era and never found anything else by her in the bookshops I frequented. Have only just realised that I’ve never looked for her in e-books! Shall do so immediately.
Thanks, Sophie. Sadly, The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown isn’t available except in used paperback, and I mainly read on an e-reader, for eyesight reasons. There are so many beloved old books that I wish would be reissued as e-books.
As a bit of an arachnophobe and an avoider of horror in all genres, I think I’ll give this one a miss, Sophie. I haven’t read much fantasy since my youthful love affair with the Dragons of Pern. I know I’m missing out on a lot of great writing so I need to get down to it.
Probably a wise decision, Liz. I’m rather well disposed to our eight-legged friends so it doesn’t worry me. And the cretaures themselves are rather interesting and not at all ill-meaning, though occasionally a bit short on imagination, perhaps. But you’re not the first person I know who would get the horrors from the idea.
Thanks for the recommendation, Sophie. I haven’t read much fantasy for years but i do recall the books I enjoyed were those who dragged me quickly into their strange new world. Perhaps it’s time I tried it again with Unraveller – I think I will cope with the Little Brothers!
I do hope you enjoy it, Sarah.