Marks, Laurie J. - Fire Logic

[oyceter]

I feel like I've hit a run of really good sf/f lately, and this adds to the streak.

Harald G'deon, ruler of Shaftal, dies without naming the next G'deon. That very day, the Sainnites, who have already been picking fights with Shaftal, invade. The entire goverment of Shaftal falls.

Thirty-five years later, Shaftal is still under occupation; Paladins wage guerilla war with the Sainnites, and both sides are suffering brutal losses. And somehow, two fire bloods (Zanja and Emil) and one earth witch (Karis) will end up affecting the course of nations.

Ok, that was horrible back copy speak, and it makes the book sound like your standard fantasy novel with elemental magic and the plot to overthrow the evil conquerors.

But it's actually a book about occupation and, more importantly, about living under occupation. It's about extremely broken people sometimes finding a way to become less broken, even if they can't be completely healed. And it's a book about hard answers or no answers at all, because war and occupation and genocide are not things that easy answers.

I loved the care that Marks put into this book; it shows. Her characters are all distinct and complex, and the way she focuses on issues of war is universes from the usual fantasy wars. I like that while she never takes the blame off the Sainnites for invading and killing, she also shows how occupation warps the occupied, how it fosters vengeance and aggression and makes it so difficult to create peace, political and personal.

Also, Zanja is a POC! Who saves the day! And she does so without being a Mystical POC because Marks makes her so real and so very, very human, because we are in Zanja's POV half the time and we hurt and suffer and try to hope along with her. Marks also makes sure that women are well represented in the book; Zanja is awesome, but so are Karis and Norina, and they are all awesome and human in entirely different ways. She also makes it clear that women are in background society as well: her powerful women are not exceptions. Similarly, Marks has several gay and lesbian characters, and she deals with them in the same way.

Spoilers start here!

I wasn't particularly surprised to discover that Karis is the G'deon, but I was surprised by the pacing of the novel. I'm impressed that Marks managed to cram about twenty or thirty years in the first few chapters without making anything too prologue-y, and I like that the massacre of the Ashawala'i comes after we've gotten to know them and Zanja -- it hurts so much more that way.

On a minor note, coffeeandink mentioned (spoilers for this book in link) that she was a little bugged by the fact that the POC were basically completely killed off in the book; I am as well, even though I think Marks does an incredibly good job of showing the aftermath and in her portrayal of Zanja.

I also loved Norina in a prickly sort of way. I like that she is prickly and gets between Zanja and Karis, but we can see where she is coming from as well. And that made Mabin's betrayal in the end that much harder, because I could see that Mabin had Norina's trust and loyalty, and I knew Norina enough to weight that.

I also had moments of bookish delight with Emil and Medric, and I particularly loved flipping back through the book to reread the quotes at the beginning of the sections. I don't often do that, but it serves to illustrate how books illuminate the characters and vice versa.

And finally: interracial lesbian sex saves the world! Awesome!

This is a very good book: it's solid in the best of ways. Marks earns my love for all her characters honestly; they are all complex and fully realized, and they all grapple with their own problems and fears. Most of all, I love Marks' thoughtfulness, which shines through every page. She takes no shortcuts and always remembers that there are consequences; in that way, her books remind me of Rosemary Kirstein's.

Highly recommended.

I feel like many more people must have written this one up, but I can't find them (um, yes, this is precisely why I am so obsessive-compulsive about my own LJ memories and tags). In other words, let me know if you blogged about this!

Links:
- coffeeandink's two reviews
- yhlee's review
- Victoria McManus on SFRevu
- rachelmanija's review
- kate_nepveu's review