2010 contemporary fantasy. In a decaying alternate-present
Johannesberg, Zinzi December is one of the animalled: people who, for
reasons that aren't entirely clear, have acquired an animal companion
and magical powers. Of course, that's not entirely a good thing.
As an SF reader, I expect a book with a premise like that to be
about exploring it: why have these animals started appearing, and why
only to people who've done something they're ashamed of; what is this
mysterious Undertow that they're all so scared of? But that isn't this
book; there are some scene-setting secondary texts that mention this
stuff in passing, but what this is about is the people, Zinzi and
her friends and enemies, constantly screwing each other over to get
ahead while some of them, at least, try to cling on to the idea that
they aren't bad people. Mostly.
The odd thing, therefore, is that Zinzi doesn't actually have all that
much effect on the plot. The major villain's plan mostly comes off,
and while it goes awry in the end that's not because of her actions.
She's a spectator at the key scenes, and that lessens the effect of
the narrative that's trying to tell us who she is; in the end she
isn't anyone particularly important. Meanwhile, for a book about a
world with magic available to the common struggling people, there's
not even very much magic going on.
In spite of all that, though, it's an enjoyable book, for its vision
of hand-to-mouth urban life in a South Africa packed with refugees;
it's more of a picaresque wander than a conventional narrative
progression, and indeed in the run-up to the climax when Zinzi starts
revisiting previous locations there's something of a loss of momentum.
Distrust of the animalled seems to have completely replaced racism, to
the point that I didn't notice anything more than a passing mention of
skin colour. Zinzi isn't either excessively perfect or an excessive
screw-up (as far as we know; she thinks she's responsible for the
death of her brother but that's another point that's never really
expanded on, and what we're told doesn't seem entirely consistent with
her having done prison time for it).
If only she had a bit more agency this would be great stuff; as it is
it's still pretty impressive, and I'll keep a look out for more by
Beukes.
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