Year of Our War (Gollancz Sf S.) [Hardcover]

Steph Swainston (Author)

Book Description

Series: Gollancz Sf S. | Publication Date: April 15, 2004

A superb work of literary fantasy. In a truly original imagined world of breathtaking, sometimes surreal, beauty, fifty utterly alien but disarmingly human immortals lead mankind in a centuries-long war. Jant is the Messenger, one of The Circle, a cadre of fifty immortals who serve the Emperor, and the only immortal - indeed the only man alive - who can fly. The Emperor is seeking to protect mankind from the hordes of giant insects who have plagued the land for centuries, overwhelming towns with their beautiful nests, eating everything and everyone in their path. But he must also contend with the rivalries and petty squabblings of his chosen immortals. These are squabbles that will soon spill over into open civil war. Steph Swainston has written an astonishingly original literary fantasy. She writes beautifully. Her novel places her in a tradition of writing typified by Mervyn Peake, M. John Harrison and, latterly, China Mieville. This is a breathtaking debut novel of the finest quality.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In British author Swainston's first novel, a well-written, if occasionally uneven, fantasy, three humanoid species coexist successfully in a medieval world under the rule of a benevolent, immortal emperor, supported by a circle of 50 immortal warriors. For many centuries, however, this civilization has been under attack by Insects, monstrous creatures who convert everything they conquer into the Paperlands, endless wastelands of bizarre white walls and tunnels. Now one of the immortals, Jant the Messenger, addicted to the hallucinatory drug called cat, which allows him access to an alternate universe, has discovered the Insects' secret. Despite his debilitating addiction, Jant must find a way to preserve his world against the monsters' increasing onslaught. Numerous bloody battles keep the action moving, and Swainston has a powerful sense of the surreal, but her domestic scenes tend to drag and verge on soap opera. Jant is an engaging antihero, though most of the other characters are fairly flat. This off-beat fantasy should appeal to fans of China Miéville's fiction as well as to those who remember Roger Zelazny's Amber series with fondness.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'An enjoyable piece of 'weird' fiction' -- Andrew Osmond DREAMWATCH 'A joy to read, it is bursting at the seams with ideas. The Year of Our War is the first book that makes you believe New Weird actually is a movement, rather than a bunch of books China Mieville likes. A Mieville quote appears prominently on the cover where he describes the book as "thoughtful, exuberant, incredibly inventive, funny but never whimsical or mannered." This is true and it doubles as a kind of manifesto pledge for New Weird' SF Site 'A stunning fantasy, and the most incredible thing about it is that it is a first novel... The setting is impeccably realised, with a deftness of touch and a genius for description which would be impressive in an author of considerably greater experience - of the current crop of British fantasy writers, only China Mieville can touch this level of brilliance. In fifty years time, people are still going to be reading this book and talking about it the way we talk about Gormengast' -- George Walkley INK MAGAZINE 'The density of Swainston's creation is breathtaking. But Swainston's also a knockout writer for scenes of triumphant action. Having created a world that's almost too complex to comprehend, she's able to unravel scenes of spectacular conflict. From the jaw-dropping opening chapter to the tense and bloody finish, Swainston puts the reader in the picture with a clarity that challenges cinema.' -- Rick Kleffel TRASHOTRON Her descriptive passages are rich and vivid and her characterisation is actually even better; frankly it's superb... Even her dialogue is free-flowing, original, yet natural-sounding; how often do you get that from a debut novelist? As for the protagonist himself: in Jant Shira, Swainston has come upwith one of the most irrepressibly loveable rogues in fantasy fiction, bar none. So, The Year of War has everything, yes? It's about as close to a perfect debut as you can get.' THE ALIEN ONLINE Every so often in publishing a buzz develops about a book. The current buzz is most definitely the property of Steph Swainston and her stunning debut novel, The Year of our War. If it has antecedents then they are Angela Carter, Roger Zelazny, M. John Harrison and China Mieville. But while drawing on such illustrious forebears, it is by no means derivative. It is very much its own thing. It has a rare combination of the grim, the bizarre and the hilarious. And somehow it all works. EMERALD CITY

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz (April 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0575070056
• ISBN-13: 978-0575070059
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,198,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and Original, September 12, 2010

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The Evil Hat (evilhatDOTblogspotCOM) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Year of Our War (Paperback)

"I wanted to ask the Emperor how life was, back when god walked the earth. What did it really look like? Sound like? What did it mean to live when everybody knew everything? While San wrote, the pen scratching, I tried to imagine existence with god nearby, enjoying its creation, when there was no Insects, no Castle - this two-thousand-year-old stone, just lush grass. The Fourlands does not really belong to us - it is god's playground; god gave us responsibility for its creation, which we have failed to defend.

As ever, San read my mind. Almost imperceptibly, he said, 'Once there was peace.'"

The Year of Our War is a book that, at first, looks just about as generic as fantasy can get. We've got a (literally) faceless, inhuman enemy; we've got an immortal protagonist who can fly and, due to his ability to access the Shift, may be instrumental in the war against the Insects; we've got a series of squabbling, immortal lords, generally far more interested in increasing their own fortunes than in banding together and actually accomplishing something; and, to cap it all off, we've got a semi-divine Emperor ruling over the whole thing. And yet, The Year of Our War is anything but a traditional fantasy. The novel is set apart both by the excellent characterization and first person prose of its main character, Jant, and by its interesting take on immortality.

Now, I've seen some people say that Jant is a poor character because of his weak personality. This is absolutely baffling to me. It's true that Jant is not the driving force behind most of the events of the book, but since when does a character not being a traditional hero invalidate their depth? Jant's very much the junior among the immortals of the Emperor's Circle, and he is constantly dragged into the schemes of the older, more powerful, and more forceful immortals. Since before his time in the Circle, he has used the hallucinogenic scolopendium. His drug use is one of the few things that sets him apart amongst the immortals, and his habit has, if anything, worsened. It hasn't, however, given him a degree of control over his own life; instead, he's just added yet another master yanking him in yet another direction. One of the only times he's ever taken direct control of something in his life was to commit a terrible crime that he now regrets. He's conflicted, intelligent, and immensely self centered. He is absolutely oblivious to the feelings of those around him, something never more obvious than the scenes with his wife, Tern. All of that points to a deep, realistic character to me, even if he's not the easiest to always cheer along with.

Jant isn't always the most honest, nor knowledgeable of narrators. When one of his ideas backfires, he rarely admits guilt. Any events that took place without him present might as well not have happened, as far as his recollections are concerned. This gives the book a meandering feel at times, because sub plots are dropped and resumed almost at random. This can be annoying, yes, but it also gives the book a more lifelike feel, one that timelier pacing would be unable to provide. Paradoxically, the focused nature of the narrative is what lends The Year of Our War its sense of scale. When Jant returns to an area unmentioned for a hundred pages, only to find it burned to the ground, it's apparent that the war with the Insects is bigger than any one person can comprehend.

The thematic crux of The Year of Our War is the immortality of the Circle. Though at first it seems to be handled in a comic book sense, where immortality and blessing are simply means to kill monsters better, it soon becomes apparent that the longevity of the Fourlands' rulers dictates every aspect of their culture. This is explored in what is by far the book's most interesting sub plot, Swallow's quest for immortality on the basis of her musical skills. When she goes up to the emperor, he says:

"'Do you think music requires an immortal guardian, as Lightening controls the skill of archery? Would it better if music was left to change and develop as future people wish?'"

Since its policy makers are immortal, the Fourlands have essentially stagnated. This isn't a Warhammer-esque stagnation, where progress is lost forever, but, as long as the immortals reign over their disciplines, true progress cannot take place. How could a musketeer outperform the god of archery, and, if he could not, how could the invention ever take hold in such a society? The immortals, however, only control the arts of war, and the rest of the society can progress at a standard pace. This leads to the interesting (though occasionally hard to swallow) existence of a society where people wear T-shirts and kill each other with swords.

This stagnation extends to characterization as well as to setting. One of the major complaints that I've seen about The Year of Our War is that the supporting characterizations are shallow. I don't completely agree in all cases, but I'll admit they have a point - I just think the one dimensionality of certain characters is intentional (though, as I've said on here before, interesting thematic decisions don't always translate well to enjoyable reading). When a character becomes immortal, they're frozen at whatever age they happen to be at, arresting their own development:

"'How old have you been for two hundred years, Comet?'

'Twenty-three. But I've grown wiser!'

'Have You? I think it would be a shame to deny the Fourlands the music she would make if she were to grow more mature. When she gains more experience, her music will be so improved that the rest of the world will learn from it.'"

Of course, the members of the Circle don't think that they've been treading water for thousands of years:

"Many [immortals] are jaded and love innovation; some of us, like myself, invent to make our lives easier and to prove we are the best specialists in our various professions. The more confident immortals embrace novelty and would welcome Swallow's continual creation."

While at first convincing, Jant's words soon ring hollow. First of all, the end of the first sentence is very telling: to prove we are the best specialists in our various professions. So, while Jant may pass his time by inventing gliders, you're not going to see Lightening rendering himself obsolete by inventing (or even endorsing) handguns. The older immortals are all trapped in their own pasts. Lightening still squabbles with Mist over territorial disputes forgotten before any living mortal was born; Mist is unwilling to acknowledge Ata's innovations, because something that daring would be unthinkable in the more traditional time that he's a product of.

The Insects, a faceless enemy that endlessly encroaches on the borders of the Fourlands, drive almost every event in the novel, but they're probably the least interesting part of it. They're suitably terrifying off screen, of course, but the Circle's prowess defangs them a tad in direct confrontation. Really, the main problem facing the human armies seems to be a lack of arrows, and, as such, I have a simple plan for victory: all T-shirt factories have hereby been taken over by the state, and they will produce either A. arrows, or B. quivers to hold said arrows. If every archer brings, say, fifteen quivers, instead of the customary four arrows, I'm confident the Insects would cease to be such a big deal.

And then there's the Shift, an altogether different realm in which the rules of reality are totally different, accessed by overdosing on scolopendium. I don't understand how there are so few Fourlanders there, if an overdose is really all that's needed, and if scolopendium is as often abused as Jant's flashbacks would have us believe, but that's a miniscule point. The Shift is a breeding ground for the bizarre, and it would be easy to let it grow whimsical to the point of irrelevance, but creatures like the unsettling Vermiform insure that there're some teeth in the whole affair, and I'm looking forward to learning more about what the hell it is in future volumes.

The Year of Our War is an excellent debut. I've seen a whole host of reviews that have called it a Miéville clone, and I just don't really get that. It's about a self centered character who flies, so alright, I guess that's a superficial similarity to Perdido Street Station. They're both New Weird, but I don't think genre's enough to acquire rip off status. They're both concerned with questions of immortality and an eternal war...oh, wait, no; they're not. Maybe I'm being silly, but I don't know how a book can be a pastiche while exploring wholly different themes. The Year of Our War has got some flaws, some of which are easily excusable and some of which are not, but it makes up for all of them with its tight focus and interesting ideas. If you're interested in New Weird, this is something you need to check out.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars lots of potential for a great story but....., November 21, 2004

By 

A. White "adynomoose" (New Orleans, La United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year of Our War (Paperback)

This book tries to take too many directions. The characters and situations are compelling but, just when it's about to hook you, The Year of Our War goes off on another sub-plot.
I would really like to see a more focused look at the world that Steph Swainston has created here. The Year of Our War only gives a teaser of this world.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new type of fantasy, December 23, 2006

By 

Larry Ketchersid "author of Software by the K... (Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year of Our War (Paperback)

After a while, one grows tired of elves and orcs and barbarians and the typical fantasy stories. Steph Swainston has invented a new and unique world with none of the normal suspects in it, with great imagination that still leaves a lot to the readers to ponder.

She creates a world with mortals and immortals, where the immortals must earn their place by being the best at what they can do: the best swordsman, the best sailor, the best archer. Immortality is betowed upon them by the Emperor San...where he got the ability to do this is one of the mysteries of the series.

Jant Comet is one of the immortals, called the Messenger because of his unique ability to fly. Because he is the Emperor's Messenger, we get to see the politics of the realm, and even see Jant change a few things.

The Emperor's realm is at war with the Insects, who look like bugs many times the size of humans and who build paper nests out of counqueorer lands. Where the Insects have come from is yet another of the mysteries in the book and series.

Jant is an addict to a substance called Cat. Ms. Swainston's portrayl of Jant's addiction, in this book and the next, is dead on...she must have known or studied addicts quite closely.

Jant's addiction gives him entrance into a parallel world, a world he and we the readers are not sure is real until we explore it further. Then it becomes tied in with the Emperor's world and the Insects.

Ms. Swainston mixes political intrigue (immortals battling each other for position; non-immortals vs. the Emperor; mortals vying to become immortals), war (vividly imagines human vs. insect fighting scenes, shades of Stormship Troopers!), addiction and Jant's journey of self-discovery into an excellent fantasy novel. As an author, what I most admire about the writing is her ability to not tell the reader what is going on (at least for the big stuff) but to let us figure it out. The novel held me in suspense till the end, made we eager for the next (which is equally good).

Highly recommended.