Customer Reviews

Among Others

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a stunningly wonderful book.

I have never read anything that so perfectly captures the experience of being fifteen, a science fiction reader just discovering some of the greats of the field (not to mention fandom!), the new kid in school who doesn't quite fit in, the young woman just starting to reach for adulthood, and not sure where she fits in a family where no one except her imperfectly known father seems to share her interests and concerns.

Of course, Morwenna's problems are in a whole different league from my own at her age. Morwenna's twin sister was killed in a car accident that left Morwenna crippled. That accident was their witch mother's retaliation for their successful thwarting of her spell intended to make her a Dark Queen. Now Morwenna is dependent on the father she's never met.

On the one hand, Morwenna and her father Daniel bond over their love of science fiction. On the other hand, her aunts, his three sisters, decide that she belongs at Arlinghurst, the same boarding school they attended, so that's where she goes. It's a tough transition for her, a crippled girl among enthusiastic athletes, a Welsh girl amongst mostly upper middle class English girls, an enthusiastic reader amongst students who think reading is only for studying. But she's smart, and determined, and doesn't really see any better alternatives, so she finds ways to cope.

And as she struggles to find her own place, and her own friends, and her own path, she discovers that the threat from her mother is not over. Together with all the normal adolescent challenges, Morwenna also does battle with her mother's hostility and ambitions, the ethics of magic, and the desire and opportunity to be reunited with her sister.

This is a beautifully written book, lovingly and convincingly depicting both adolescent angst and the joys of discovering science fiction and the community of science fiction fandom.

Highly recommended.

I purchased this book and have received no compensation from the publisher or anyone else for reading and reviewing it.

This is a wonderful novel. I fell in love with the voice, which reminded me of Dodie Smith's "I Capture the Castle". It's a precocious 15 year old's journal, as she navigates the confusions of adolescence, darkened by her sister's death. She's lost her home with her extended family in Wales, and is living in an English girl's boarding school, with holidays at her father's house -- the father that she just met for the first time. Her world includes fairies, and magic, and Walton does an amazing job of making that both believable, and at the same time making it feasible for it to be all in Mori's imagination. Mori is confident and analytical. She turns that analysis on herself, what she sees around her, and the books she reads. That logical analysis can be quite funny, as she tries to make sense of the scoring system and rules in her new boarding school and family.

She adores books, especially SF and fantasy. This book is a love letter to librarians, to interlibrary loan, and to SF fandom. She mentions all the books she's reading, with wonderful comments on them. It conjures up the wonder of discovering books as a child, if you were one of those kids. While many of the books she mentions are SF or fantasy, not all are. Others that come up include Josephine Tey, Mary Renault, Plato, Shakespeare, and T. S. Eliot. She is thoroughly steeped in SF, though. When she has nightmares, and wakes up terrified, she uses the litany against fear from Dune, and it works.

A friend of mine says he was raised by wolves; I always say I was raised by books. Books provided the context, the subtext, and the text of my world. I was an alien, a misfit, uncomfortable in my family and at school. But in books I was the protagonist, I was normal, I was in worlds weird and fantastic, romantic and historical.

It's 1979 and Mor is fifteen. She, too, lives in books. She reveals her world to us and it is weird and fantastic, romantic and historial, all the while seeming ordinary and mundane on the outside.

This is a wonderful book about what it's like to feel different from everybody else, and the hope of discovering that you're not--that there are people enough like you to find community, even if it's not the family you were born into or the kids you grew up with. And it's also a book about how dangerous and necessary it is to change the world, or to refrain from changing the world, with magic and fairies and ghosts and witches.

Among Others is a fun, interesting book, and I sped through it in one day. Looking back though, several flaws detract from what might otherwise have been excellent.

Through her journal entries (which are really just regular first-person narration), this book relates the story of Mori, a Welsh teenager and lover of science fiction who is sent to an upper-class English boarding school after fleeing her abusive mother. Mori doesn't fit in with the other girls and spends the bulk of her time reading SF novels. She's a sympathetic and relatable character, particularly if you were an odd kid who read a lot; I loved the way she talked about the inter-house competitions, for instance, which everyone else took very seriously and she couldn't care less about. The book is well-written and does a great job of keeping questions in the reader's mind at all times, particularly as Mori takes her time in telling us about her past. And the discussions of class tensions in 1970's England, as well as the trouble readers had to take to find books by their favorite authors before the Internet (we're spoiled nowadays!) were interesting.

A couple of minor SPOILERS follow.

But there are several problems. Most notable (and ironic since Mori criticizes other books for this) is that the book is just way too pat. Mori forms close bonds almost instantaneously with every other reader she meets (and there are a lot of them, as she joins a book club halfway through); the first guy to catch her eye soon becomes her boyfriend; the last couple pages are almost sickeningly sweet. And then there are all the unanswered questions. One subplot deals with Mori's aunts trying to force her to get her ears pierced, which she believes will stop her from doing magic--but she never discovers their motivation. We never find out what's really behind the aunts' relationship with Mori's father, nor why their father committed suicide, despite hints that this would be important. Etc. We're briefly given a lot of fascinating information about Mori's extended family, but it's never followed up on, sometimes never referred to again. I'm not sure why the author dangled so many tantalizing hooks if they were irrelevant to the story at hand.

So the book is worth a read, probably especially if you've read much 1970's science fiction (I haven't, and I don't feel that this detracted from my understanding of the book, but someone who's read most of the books Mori discusses would probably enjoy those parts more). Still, it isn't quite what it could have been. If it had been longer, enough to make Mori work harder to earn her happy ending and to flesh out more of the characters and their stories, I suspect it would have been excellent.

I love so much about this book.

I love that it's character-driven rather than plot-driven. Nothing particularly happens in this novel -- a girl goes to boarding school, is shunned, writes and reads a lot, and eventually finds a few friends; the "reckoning that could no longer be put off" takes place within the confines of the last few pages, and feels. . . on the whole, slightly unnecessary. Anyone who wants action should look elsewhere. This book takes place almost entirely within the confines of Mori's head, and I love that. I love that it's about grieving, and that it's about identity, and that it's about making the best of your seriously messed up family.

I love that it's about books, and that Mori engages with books, has forceful opinions about them that the reader is clearly allowed to disagree with. I haven't actually read most of the books Mori talks about (somehow I've read lots of stuff from the 60s and from the 80s on, but precious little from the 70s) but my background knowledge of the authors was enough that I didn't feel like I missed anything. Probably the only work any reader has to be familiar with is Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle: A Novel, because Mori uses the terms "karass" and "granfalloon" a lot before she explains them to an outsider -- but even those terms are fairly clear from the context.

I love the way the magic works. . . no flashes or puffs of smoke to let you know something has happened, just a sudden string of coincidences (going back long before you cast your spell) leading to the outcome you wanted. It's the sort of magic I think makes sense in a contemporary setting with our history, and it's the sort of magic I wish there was more of in fantasy, because it seems so much more magical than the magic-by-numbers currently popular. And yes, it IS magic: Mori thinks so, and the author says so, so I see no reason to question that fact.

But somehow. . . I did not quite love this book. Maybe it's because I wasn't particularly alienated as a teenager. Maybe it's because I wanted just a little bit more. . . magic, in Mori's voice, to carry through some of the boarding school drama. Or maybe this is one of those books that will hit me harder the further I get from it -- it certainly has that potential. I expected to love this book, and maybe that's why I didn't; very little can live up to the level of expectation produced by the knowledge that there's a new book by a favorite author that's getting tons of praise from other favorite authors. Whatever the case. . . I will absolutely recommend this to anyone who likes the stuff I laid out above. It's absolutely going on my keeper shelf, and I'm glad I bought it in hardcover. But it isn't quite a book that immediately carved out a place in my soul.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I read it because I love SF and fantasy, and was a total bookworm like Mori as a teen (still am). However, I felt that the book spent more time talking about other books then it did spending time creating and fleshing out its own world. Mori speaks about falling totally into the world of Tolkien, but doesn't create that same sense. Perhaps it is just the "journal entries" that create the stuttering effect? That being said, I loved the perspective: watching her deal with death, betrayal and love - all the joys of growing up and discovering who and what you are and want to be. I look forward to seeing what the author will come out with next.

For shy, smart kids in the late seventies and early eighties, nothing provided more escape than golden age science fiction and the wonders of fantasy novels. I could read two a day, and often did. The favorites of my battered paperbacks still hold a shelf of their own; everything by Ursula Leguin, the Chronicles of Prydain, The Dune series, The Hobbit, the Gormenghast books, Evangeline Walton's take on Welsh mythology, and so many more. Will I save them forever? Probably. But will I reread them? Probably not (with the exception of Mervyn Peake). I am terrified that they won't hold up, and they were so important to me that I can't risk it.

One of the great pleasures of Among Others is the opportunity to revisit the wonderful books that aided me in my own adolescent escape. The juxtaposition of Mor's reading life and her school life is so well done, the consolations of books in the face of social rejection. But her family life and her belief in magic, is so sweetly, delicately drawn, so deniable, that I wondered if she was schizophrenic for most of the book. In fact, having finished, and having considered all the other hard evidence stacked up, I still wonder if she is schizophrenic. Did her twin sister even exist? Read carefully for confirmation of her life in the words of her aunts, uncles and parents.

I have my doubts.

I found this book extremely engrossing and touching, but also baffling and a little unsatisfying by the end. I certainly understand the reviewers who feel that nothing happened (though I don't agree). But this is not your usual enchanted boarding school novel. It is very much a novel of the real life of a British teenager, touched by madness and magic and aided by books.

Kids nowadays have it easy. If you're into fantasy, there's a good chance that the books you like have a devoted following and a few dedicated web sites. There may be movie franchises and/or an HBO series about them. You can buy Team Jacob/Team Edward shirts, Harry Potter glasses and A Game of Thrones calendars. There may be book release parties, even people sleeping in front of the bookstore when the next book is due out. There's GoodReads, Shelfari and Librarything, and even if you're not on one of those sites, it's never been easier to connect with other fans and with the authors themselves.

Growing up in the seventies, it was considerably harder to meet like-minded readers or even just find out about the existence of books you might want to read: as unreliable as Amazon release dates can be, they're at least an indication that the author is a) still alive and b) working on the next book in the series. Back then, all you had were the order forms in the back of paperbacks and whatever happened to be stocked in your local library or bookstore. Being a budding SFF fan was a lot more work back then than it is nowadays.

Take Morwenna, the main character of Jo Walton's excellent new novel Among Others. Her main passion in life -- aside from magic -- is reading science fiction and fantasy. She lives her life thinking about Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. When she runs away from home -- after successfully preventing her mother's attempt to gain dark magical powers but in the process becoming crippled and losing her twin sister -- one of her main concerns is picking the right books to take along. Whatever else is going on in her strange, lonely life, the early masterworks of science fiction and fantasy are always there for her, and if one famous saying guides her, it might be the famous Erasmus quote: "When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes."

Among Others is essentially the diary of one significant stage of Morwenna's life: after running away, her custody is assigned to her previously absentee father, but because he lives with (and is controlled by) his three sisters, Mori quickly finds herself sent to boarding school. A Welsh girl in England, crippled and shy, she's already an outsider even before she gets thrown into the brutal politics of an all-teenage-girls boarding school. As Mori comments, in her typical wry way: "It's depressing how much boarding school is just like Enid Blyton showed it, and all the ways it's different are ways it's worse."

And "diary" is meant literally here: the novel actually consists of Mori's day-by-day diary entries, describing her arrival at her father's house, her move to the boarding school, occasional trips back home and so on. Before you start thinking that Morwenna is a female and well-read version of Adrian Mole, let me assure you that this diary makes for much more interesting reading than you might expect, because Mori's way of looking at the world is consistently fascinating -- and not just because she can speak to spirits. She's funny, snarky and self-deprecating, and of course well versed in SF and fantasy. It's a true pleasure to read how she deals with the abrupt changes in her life, the prison-like atmosphere of boarding school, and her mother's attempts to contact and control her. Witnessing her growing confidence and the gradual expansion of her social circle, I genuinely found myself rooting for her.

I doubt that someone who doesn't love SF and fantasy would have the same appreciation for Among Others, because it sometimes seems that Mori's feelings about the books she reads are more important than the actual plot of the novel. Mori's excitement about finding other SFF readers, or discovering a new Roger Zelazny novel in a bookstore, is simply infectious. On the other hand, if you're not familiar with the books and authors she frequently mentions, Among Others might not have the same impact on you. Confession: I haven't read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., so I wasn't familiar with some of that novel's made-up vocabulary, which Mori applies to her own life several times, but thanks to Wikipedia I learned what a granfalloon and a karass are -- and I'm now also very curious to read this book! Still, whether you get the exact references or not, anyone who spent some of their darker teenage years finding comfort in books will almost automatically identify and empathize with Mori. (Seeing how absurdly happy she gets when discovering that inter-library loans are not only available but free, I found myself wishing I could transport myself to her time and area to hand her a fully loaded e-book reader.)

Aside from the genuine love for science fiction and fantasy that permeates every ounce of this novel, it also features a loving picture of an isolated, intelligent young woman finding her place in life, and a simple but solid present-day fantasy plot that slowly unfolds to reach a satisfying conclusion. Anyone who enjoyed Graham Joyce's The Tooth Fairy will probably love Among Others (and vice versa). The novel reads smoothly, is never boring, and is very hard to put down. Also, Jo Walton's concept of "deniable magic" made me reconsider magic and its "causality" (for want of a better word) in a whole new way.

Exactly how much of Among Others is autobiographical I don't know, but if Jo Walton's fascinating blog entries at Tor.com are an indication, there's at least one quality she undoubtedly shares with Mori: her love for science fiction and fantasy. There's a wonderful passage in Among Others: without planning, Mori and some friends find themselves heading towards the bookstore almost unwittingly. One person mentions that sunflowers are "heliotropes" -- they automatically orient themselves towards the sun -- and then says that Mori and her friends must be bibliotropes. Borrowing that wonderful word, I think it's fair to say that Among Others by Jo Walton is a novel for bibliotropes. Highly recommended.

While I'm a big fan of action-packed books, there's something to be said for a laid-back coming-of-age tale full of magic and teen angst. This is especially true when it's littered with homages and references to old science fiction and fantasy books. Jo Walton's Among Others is just such a book, and it's wonderfully gripping, though slow patches mar what is otherwise a great book.

Morwenna Phelps (Mori) is a young Welsh girl in the 1970s. She has been sent off to live with her father and his sisters in London after the death of her own twin sister and some mysterious incident with her mother that left her crippled. Her father sends her off to a boarding school because he can't take her in full time. For Mori, magic and faeries are real, but the school is a place where no magic resides. As a coping mechanism throughout her life, Mori has immersed herself in the world of science fiction and fantasy, a recluse who shies away from most social interactions. She risks everything to use her own magic to form a circle of like-minded friends at the school, which unfortunately draws the attention of her mother for a final confrontation that Mori can no longer avoid.

Among Others is told in a series of Mori's diary entries, another way that Mori deals with the ongoing drudgery of her life. She feels completely out of place among the privileged children at the boarding school, children who don't share her interests and look down on her both for her Welsh accent and her upbringing. Through these diary entries, we see a young teenager struggling to grow up, terrified that her magic may have drastic repercussions in the outside world. Her desire for friends, a normal teen angst, is tinged with sadness when she worries that the boyfriend she eventually gets is only attracted to her because she compelled him to like her.

Mori is a fascinating character, a fully three-dimensional person who struggles to find her way. Sometimes we get frustrated with her before realizing that this is what teenagers do: they make mistakes and have irrational fears and desires. Her passion for science fiction and fantasy makes her even more interesting to read about, even if you are not as well-versed in old SF as she is. Some of the references flew over my head because I haven't read that many classics, but her enthusiasm for them is palpable and almost made me want to go out and get some after finishing Among Others. This book really is an homage to the old days of the genre.

That doesn't mean Walton skimps on the character and plotting. Intriguing characters fill the book, from the other girls in school who have their own issues hiding behind some of their arrogant facades, to the members of the book club in town that Mori joins in order to find a home at the school. They all weave in and out of Mori's orbit as she struggles to find her place in the world.

I also love the ambiguity in the novel. While magic certainly exists as far as Mori is concerned, the reader is never sure. Things that happen in the book could certainly have happened without a magical explanation. Mori is convinced that her aunts are witches who are trying to control her and her father. She's convinced that what happened with her mother was witchcraft, but it could very well be just an extremely troubled woman who couldn't handle her children. It's a great book no matter whether or not magic truly does exist.

The pace of the narrative is slow and easy, almost like a pleasant walk down the garden paths inside Mori's head. This even extends to the climax, which is so sedate that I almost didn't notice that it happened even as it comes up rather abruptly. At times, the pace is almost too slow and threatens reader interest. This doesn't usually last for long, though, until Mori does or say something to capture the reader again.

Among Others is a truly magical novel. If you're a fan of classic fantasy, you have to read this book. Even if you're not, Walton's writing will pull you into Mori's story. You won't be able to help yourself.

Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book © Dave Roy, 2011

Meet Morwenna the 15 year old protagonist of this novel. When she is younger she and her twin sister, Morganna, look for fairies in the Welsh countryside among the ruins. They often find them and then play games with them and speak to them in a non-conventional way. They are daughters of a witch, an evil witch, named Liz who ends up killing Morganna and seriously injuring Morwenna. After this accident Morwenna runs away and is eventualy reunited with her long lost father, Daniel. Though they hardly know each other, Daniel took off when Morwenna was still a baby, they are very much alike in their love for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Daniel lives with his 3 sisters, who are weird to say the least and they ship Morwenna off to a posh boarding school in England.

Morwenna does not fit into her boarding school ~ she is made fun of because she walks with a cane and has a strange accent, so she does what she has always done which is lose herself into books. The book is written in journal form and Morwenna gives us her thoughts on various Science Fiction and Fantasy books that she reads. Her favorite author appears to be Tolkien as she reads Lord of the Rings over and over again, but she also love Le Guin, Zelazny, H. Beam Piper, Heinlein, and many others. She is given one of my favorites as a present, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which she thinks she will not like but actually enjoys very much.

Meanwhile she joins up a SF&F bookclub which meets every Tuesday night at the local library in town and is thrilled to find like minded people who she can actually converse with, unlike the girls at her boarding school, who all seem rather dim. Tuesdays soon become the highlight of her week as she looks forward to these meetings throughout the rest of the week.

Everything in this book is examined by the light of the books she has read. It was an interesting point of view for the author to take and very enlightening. When Morwenna talks about the books she is reading or has read it brought back treasured memories for me.

If you love books, want a little bit of magic tied in with it, and a warm and wonderful story of the recovery of a teenager from tragic events, then this is the book for you!