"Don't you want to find out?" he asked, his eyes gleaming. That's the spirit of science fiction.
You know the post I made awhile ago where I elucidated my preliminary thoughts on the Hugo Awards? Okay, Among Others has upset my caluclations: its already won the Nebula, been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and is on a fast track for the Hugo. It will deserve all three.
Imagine if Harry Potter was a girl, been sent to a more grounded high school in Wales and dealt equally with fairies and her evil witch mother and school, science fiction and her emerging sexuality. Boys and magic mingle together, the magic of early adolescence shared with the magic of...magic.
Morgenna (I hope thats her name: I kept confusing it with her sister's name, which are frustratingly similar and long and Welsh) Phelps Markova has been sent to boarding school following her sisters death, during a confrontation against her mother who sought to use magic for her own ends. Mor has acquired a stern limp, and her father (who has been distant and absent for much of her life) plays a more active role in her life, sharing her interest in science fiction novels (the book namechecks virtually everything published in the seventies).
The book unfolds as a journal as Mor chronicles her life at boarding school, depicting how science fiction fans of the late seventies got together before internet was invented, which now seems hopelessly primitive and almost terrifying. Mor seeks to find a karass, a group of people she can belong in, as well as dealing with her mother's magical attacks against her and coming to terms with her sister's death, whose ghost she can visit on particular dates.
I don't think this book can be reviewed as much as nitpicked. All my problems are those are form: I found the pace to be a little lacking, considering the book's length. It pieces out the backstory carefully, and somehow I don't think worrying about boys is on the same level of trying to survive your aspring-Disney-villan mother. Yes, I know its written from the perspective of a fifteen year old girl, who is trying to figure out her life and her body, but still. I wish more attention had been devoted to the fairies, how Mor acquired the powers to communicate with them (or am I just that inattentive a reader---either is possible).
But the strength of the novel is Mor finding herself, first finding a group she can fit in with and a family with her father who has been absent much of her life; becoming an independent person from the death of her mother; using magic responsibly (her powers are used seldom but powerfully: magic is both incredibly innocous and threatening) and confronting her power-man mother. Her mother dosen't have any other aspiration except using magic to enhance her own power, commented on by her daughter as an irrational goal like something out of Lord of the Rings.
This novel has done something I never thought would be possible: make me want to be young ago, really young, when the world is still unfolding and as I make the awkward transition from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence the way we wish we all experienced it: wise, or wise enough, to handle the challenges we face, and do a mostly good job of it.
If you love books enough, books will love you back.
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