Another Fantastic Character

Among Others - Jo Walton
2011 - Tor

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Morwenna, the heroine in Walton's Among Others, is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable protagonists I've come across in a while. The strengths of this book are two-fold, in my humble opinion. First, we have our main character, Morwenna Phelps, a bright young lady, struggling literally and figuratively in a fantasy world. Morwenna's world and the way she perceives life is fascinating and engaging and a real treat to read. 


The other compelling element of this book is its referential nature, specifically to the world of fantasy. Perhaps the English use "SF" to refer to science fiction and fantasy fiction or maybe they just use the term to refer to the fantasy genre. Regardless, Morwenna's "SF" references are so adorable. 


If you loved the characters in Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Cline's Ready Player One, and/or Diaz's Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, then you will certainly enjoy Walton's newest book. Quite a fun romp through the science-fiction/fantasy genre.


My favorite passage from the book:
"The librarian, the man, was a little startled at how many books I wanted to order, but he just gave me a pile of blanks and had me fill them in myself. Lots of books were waiting for me! Then I went down to the bookshop and bought Four Quartets, Ted Hughes's Crow and Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsinger. I also bought a box of matches.


I did not buy a book called Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen Donaldson, which has the temerity to compare itself, on the front cover, to "Tolkien at his best." The back cover attributes the quote to the Washington Post, a newspaper whose quoptations will always damn a book for me from now on. How dare they? And how dare the publishers? It isn't a comparison anyone could make, except to say "Compared to Tolkien at his best, this is dross." I mean you could say that even about really brilliant books like A Wizard of Earthsea. I expect Lord Foul's Bane (horrible title, sounds like a Conan book) is more like Tolkien at his worst, which would be the beginning of The Silmarillion.


The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect. It's the whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything. I remember finishing The Hobbit and handing it to Mor and saying "Read it. It's pretty good. Isn't there another one of these around here somewhere?" And I remember finding it - stealing it from my mother's room. When the door was open, the light from the corridor fell on the shelves R and S and T. We were always afraid to go further in, in case she was hiding in the darkness and grabbed us. She did that once, when Mor was putting back The Crystal Cave. When we took one of her books, usually, we ruffled the shelf so it wouldn't show. But the one-volume Lord of the Rings was so fat that it didn't work. I was terrified she'd see. I almost didn't take it. But either she didn't notice or she didn't care - I think she might have been away with one of her boyfriends. 


I haven't said what I wanted to about the thing about it.


Reading it is like being there. It's like finding a magic spring in a desert. It has everything. (except lust, Daniel said. But it has Wormtongue.)


It is an oasis for the soul. Even now I can always retreat into Middle Earth and be happy.


How can you compare anything to that? I can't believe Stephen Donaldson's hubris."


Brilliant.


Amazon desciption - Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.


Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead.


Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England–a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off…


Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude, this is potentially a breakout book for an author whose genius has already been hailed by peers like Kelly Link, Sarah Weinman, and Ursula K. Le Guin.