Jo Walton, Lifelode

[ellarien]

Well, that was probably the oddest book I've read this year. It's set in a world where there's an East-West gradient of ability to use magic, and also of the speed at which time passes. In the east there are gods -- whose nature we eventually find out -- and also an increased difficulty to hang on to personal identity, and conversely to the magicless west. Travelers to the East also age more slowly; it's a bit like Vinge's zones on a small, fantasy-world scale. To the mostly peaceful village of Applegarth, about halfway between the extremese, there come two travelers; Hanethe, an ancestor who went east a few generations back and has come home with a vengeful goddess after her, and Jankin, a tourist^H^H^H traveling scholar from the west. Hanethe has a vengeful goddess after her; Jankin has more charm than is good for him. Their arrival causes a series of events that seriously disrupt the cozy, polyamorous domesticity of life at the manor.

The whole thing is told in a peculiar sort of continuous present tense; one of the viewpoint characters has the ability to see people's past and future selves, but the juxtaposition of events from different epochs isn't confined to her narration. It's all done skilfully enough that it isn't hard to follow, which is quite a feat; there are echoes of Le Guin and McKinley in the style and the setting, not in a bad way.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I just adored Lifelode. I read Chalice at the same time and thought the contrasting arguments about destiny were illuminating.

[ellarien]

Hmmm. That's an interesting thought. I wasn't mad keen on Chalice, but I hadn't thought of comparing the two. (The McKinley that came most to mind while reading Lifelode was Spindle's End, which I did like and should reread sometime.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I wasn't keen on Chalice. I hated the way that being utterly trapped in a destiny was made out to be a Good Thing. And it was utterly trapped because the *world* demanded that one be a complete sap.