Darkland

[sawyl]

I actually finished reading Liz Williams' Darkland last week but, due to my recent finger infection, I haven't been able to enthuse about it until now.

The planet of Nhem is not a good place to be a woman: the local theocrats, pursuing a particularly crazed brand of misogyny have used genetic engineering to remove sentience from almost the entire female population. It is to correct this grievous wrong that the mystic assassin Vali Hallsdottir and her colleague Aldur have traveled to Nhem from Muspell. The removal goes according to plan right up to the point where Vali discovers that Aldur has vanished.

Meanwhile, on the backwater planet of Mondhile, Ruan is doing all the things a young and newly sentient human normally does: herding the murai, worrying about his sister, hunting wild birds and watching out for feral creatures. One day, whilst out hunting, he gets snared by a dark ley line and is only freed by a strange young woman, Gemaley, who all but captures his soul. Despite vowing to avoid her in future, Gemaley rescues Ruan after he takes a spill into a crevasse, taking him to her decaying, malevolent tower to recuperate.

Aldur, it turns out, was not the simple man he appeared to be. Rather he was Frey Gundersson, a Darkland vitki, Vali's former lover and mentor, the man who left her for dead on the ice after a wolf attack seven years earlier. To say that Vali and Frey have unresolved issues would be a serious understatement. In an ostensible attempt to uncover information about the Darklanders warlike activities but in reality hungry for information about Frey, Vali travels from the Reach to Darkland. Once there, she encounters a worryingly omniscient vitki who, after winding her up like a clockwork soldier, points her in the direction of the Mondhile.

Having said right at the very start I was going to enthuse, I think it's time to make good on my promise.

As usual, the locations are absolutely exquisitely done. The world of Nhem is as cold and bleak as it's theology, scarred by encroaching deserts which, it's inhabitants claim, are the result of the hand of God rather than the hand of man. The Reach on Muspell, an archipelago of islands whose geography reminded me of slightly of Earthsea, and the Skald fortress of Rock with lighthouse room and wooden conference tables had a wonderfully homely sense, while Darkland felt like something on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The Mondhile locations were equally distinctive, with Gemaley's chaotic gothic ruin of a home contrasting with Ruan's efficient, open, friendly home village.

The characters are particularly finely drawn, with a real edge of believability. Perhaps it was the first person narrative but I really found myself drawn in to Vali's life, feeling her pain as the truly horrific stuff in her past came out and wondering at her ability to push herself despite it all. Ruen was also interesting and he became more so as he changed from being an open, easy going, young man to someone trapped in an impossible and abusive relationship, which by no coincidence mirrors Vali's relationship with Frey.

The plot is elegantly paced, sure-footedly executed, laced full of intelligent ideas and interesting hints, some of which are more fully explained than others, but in a way that never seems to get in the way of the narrative drive. It neatly weaves in elements from mythology, such as talking seals and the mysticism of the seith, with scientific and rational explanations about the nature of consciousness.

Darkland is, to my mind, an absolutely first rate novel, which I wouldn't hesitate in recommending to anyone with half an interest in feminism, science fiction, theories of consciousness, literature in general, or, indeed, my maidservant or my manservant. In summary: read it. Read it today. You'll feel better for it.