Customer Reviews

Svaha

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the twenty-first century is half way through its final decade, the world is a terrible place to live except for the Enclaves. Most of the residents of the planet live in polluted communities ruled totally by money and greed with things turning worse all the time as the world nears collapse under the weight of destruction and devastation and dissolution. On the other hand, the Enclave is a clean environment where the tribes thrive in peace. The powers of the disease ridden environs outside the Enclave blame the problems on the Tribes as a means of diverting accountability by using a convenient scapegoat to silent the masses.

A flyer containing an Enclave technological chip that could help cleanse the world crashes in the outside. Afraid that it will be misused, the Enclavers send Gahzee into the precarious mess to retrieve the chip before the outside world begins encroachment on the Enclaves.

SVAHA is a reprint of the classic tale of Native American magic mingling in a world on the eve of destruction caused by self-interests polluting the environment and the minds of the people. The story line is fast-paced, filled with action, and loaded with fully developed characters representing different sides of the conflict. This novel shows why Charles de Lint has been so highly regarded by fans of science fiction and fantasy for well over a decade. Readers of HIERO'S JOURNEY will fully relish this great tale.

Harriet Klausner

I really like de Lint's urban fantasy for its grittiness and despair which exists alongside its hope and beauty. I would call this book science fiction-- it takes place in the future and deals with technology we clearly don't have. It also deals with Native American/ Aboriginal spirituality and Dreamtime. It's a beautiful quest book about creating community in an awful time and place between people who are not terrible and not immediately identifiable as 'community.' I am very glad to see this book is now in print again, it deserves a large audience. I had to wait for years to find a copy, you won't have to.

I love, love, LOVE de Lint. But Svaha...Svaha left me a little cold. I enjoyed reading it, sure, but it didn't affect me the way his books usually do. Part of the problem, I think, is that I don't think even de Lint knew what he wanted this book to be about. There is an element of Japanese culture, the cliched wastelands, the mandatory Native spirituality...but nothing really tying any of them together. The book revs up an adrenaline high early on, keeps it going, and then just ENDS. In, like, a page, the story reaches its climax and conclusion, and the reader is left thinking, "What? It's DONE?" The story doesn't feel finished to me. There is also the annoying gratuitous character death, which is really atypical for de Lint. He keeps introducing these characters, mostly walking sci-fi charicatures, and then kills them off. Also, there was what I have come to call the "Wyrd Science" problem--the panoramic view of the future, the technology--basically, all the sci-fi stuff just sounded sort of off to me.

Don't get me wrong, here...the writing is pretty damn good, and a bad de Lint is better than a great Nina Kiriki Whatsername any day. But this just didn't quite work for me.

I just finished reading Svaha for perhaps the 6th time. Each time I read it, I get more from the book. While it is a super book to read if you want to experience a post-apocalyptic adventure story, if you read it for that alone, you're missing so much. The mixture of Native American and Japanese cultures, the struggle between honor, duty and the need for change, all of these combine to create a world of teaching.

Naturally, I am a huge fan of Charles DeLint's work. Svaha, in particular, being among the best due to the darker, semi-apocalyptic landscape of the setting. DeLint is a master of creating magical fantasy in gritty urban worlds. I like the feel of of the abandoned industrial world bearing down of those who once gave life to it. The Enclave also has some intriguing possibilties unexplored by DeLint as yet. Personally, I would like to see a return to this setting, but not as much as I'd like to see Tamson House appear in my front yard.

Before they began reprinting "Svaha" I managed to find a first printing copy in a used book store - yay! This is one of his older publications, and I've found that some of de Lint's earlier works are a little more quirky, a little less formula than his newer ones. In many ways, that's quite desireable, and I find "Svaha" to be a great read.

tl;dr: <Worth the $4 I paid for it, but if you want depth, go read his Newford stuff. Or William Gibson.>

In Svaha, Charles De Lint tackles a fairly cut-and-paste dystopian cyberpunk setting, adding only a Native American element to keep in touch with his core of fantasy writing.

Svaha is set in a 21st century where Indian tribes have regained their land and sealed themselves away from the world with superior technology. Their lives in Utopian Enclaves are as stereotypically complacent and superior as any Amerind tagalong could wish them to be. The world outside of the Enclaves, is, as one might expect, a completely ruined nigthmare, split between scavengers living in the ruins and shining Metroplexes in what used to be North American cities, run by, of course, Japanese corporations.

The main character, Gahzee is an Amerind scout who must turn his back on the Enclave and venture out into the wild to protect the secret of their technology.

And you can stop there.

Beyond this, the characters are generally likable, but one-dimensional, the plot predictable, and all the high points of the cyberpunk genre are duly touched upon without anything groundbreaking. The Native American element is interesting, but de Lint seems to be working so hard to fill the sci-fi architecture that he has no time to truly work his magic.

By the time Gahzee comes around to standing up to his tribe in defense of the... yada yada yada, we have only really seen enough of Native American culture to paint a thin, patchy whitewash over a tired, borrowed ending.

Is it a good de Lint story? Not particularly. Is it a bad cyberpunk story? Not really. Unfortunately, 5 years after Neuromancer, being 'just' a level cyberpunk story is far from enough.

"Svaha" is a work of speculative fiction (fantasy/science fiction) by one of the best writers in the genre with startling parallels or coincidences that have great meaning for me. The story takes place in the far-off future when the environmental apocalypse has come and gone. What is left of humanity live in brutal toxic wastelands or slums next to airtight city-complexes (Megaplexes) where the rich and powerful ruling Oriental elites live.

However (and this is interesting) just before the collapse Daniel Hollow Horn, an Indigenous leader, sees the value of learning about the white man's technology - systems, infrastructure and computers in particular. In a time of increasing marginalization of nature and her wild inhabitants, as well as the genocide of First Nations peoples worldwide, he urges "The People" everywhere to learn as much as they possibly can about technology.

When it comes to the crunch they are able to come together in unity and miraculously preserve sealed "Enclaves" all over the planet that become the only sanctuaries of wilderness left. Therefore (and much to the rage of all the other people) the most precious places on Earth are fully controlled by Native Peoples. NO OTHERS are allowed in, and rarely does anyone leave. Svaha is a magical, fascinating story - there is a lot of conflict and gross violence but it is well worth the read.

The "Enclaves" are scattered - there are twelve in North America (including "Lakota Enclave" in the Black Hills & "Kawarthas Enclave" in guess where - my home the Kawarthas!!), two in South America, two in Australia, one in Africa, one in Siberia and three space stations in orbit with "skyhooks" connecting them to the Lakota, Haida and Wadi Enclave (in Australia). Even more interesting is the role that "Maniwaki Enclave" plays at the very end of the book - I couldn't believe it!!!! (In reality Maniwaki is a place of spiritual importance.) I won't give the story away, but you will love the appearance of "The Twisted Hairs" as much as I did.

Although it was difficult to get into Svaha because de Lint throws around languages and cultures in this book like nobody's business, it all started flowing much more smoothly when the cyberpunk rat met up with the Native American warrior. By this point, the juxtaposition of the cyberpunk setting and the samurai culture and the Native guy's visions ceased to be so jarring and started to make sense. Each culture represents a different segment of our society: those in favor of treating the environment with respect, the cold corporatism and consumerism that's destroying the world, and those powerless caught in between, the ones who are going to have to suffer the consequences.

The plot itself revolves around a stolen piece of Native technology. The stolen tech could allow hostile outside forces to break into the Native enclaves and proceed to despoil the last pure tracts of land left in the entire world. Gahzee was sent out of the enclave on foot to keep the technology out of hostile hands. Through interacting with the citizens of the slums and badlands, however, Gahzee begins to question the wisdom of the Native people staying separated from a world gone so horribly wrong when the outside people so obviously need help.

This question is where the story's heart really lies, not in the numerous firefights and samurai-style showdowns, but in the debate over whether the descendants of those who destroyed the environment deserve a second chance or should be left in the nightmare world that their ancestors created. Gahzee meets many people who are stuck in a horrible situation through no fault of their own, and who would not mistreat the earth or exploit the Native people like the villains of the story would. This debate permeates the last third of the book, and Gahzee is not the sort of person to back away from a problem.

The answers aren't easy, and the conclusion of the book gives hope, but no promises. The characters have lived in a world tainted by evil, and evil, once learned, is not easy to unlearn. This was actually where I had to suspend disbelief the most: the explanation for how the Native people managed to return to the old ways after so many generations of poverty and alcoholism and exposure to capitalism was too simplistic. The old arts are dying out. The old tongues are dying out. A return to the old ways would be difficult and fraught with hardship. (De Lint does not press our disbelief too much on this point - his futuristic Native Americans wear traditional deerskins, but seem to have kept the ideas of electricity and computers.)

Despite the nitpicks, I very much enjoyed this book. It is genuinely good, and it is everything that I like in a novel. The themes aren't just particular to the world that de Lint created, but it speaks to problems in our world, too. The characters of this world have only one chance left to save their world, but we haven't gone that far yet down the path of no return. We can still change. We can still save the world.

It may not be typical De Lint, yet it definetely is his work. A wonderful story which stretches all imagination. Don't let whatever misgivings you have about this being a science fiction story deter you from reading this. The first few pages may be a little slow-paced and bewildering, but you'll never regret enduring those first pages. THRILLING rise to the climax though the fall from the climax is a little too steep for my liking, it should've stretched longer. Nevertheless, a fine, enthralling must read... as all of De Lint's works.