2019 young adult fantasy. In Gilded Age America, January Scaller lives
in a mansion filled with peculiar treasures, and is something of a
peculiar treasure herself. Her father travels for months on end,
hunting for artefacts for Mr Locke. But it gradually becomes clear
that what really matters is the doors between worlds…
On one level this is a young-adult story about breaking free from
one's upbringing when it turns toxic and finding allies while making
one's own way. And that works pretty well; its uses of racism and
unchecked power are effective without being overblown.
On another it's a critique of portal fantasy. How is a world different
when people can stumble in and out of it? How do the people in that
world react to the knowledge? Well, they react like the people they
already are. (To my mind that's one of the few mis-steps, when it
turns out that the villains are abg whfg evpu crbcyr jub qba'g jnag
gurve jbeyq trggvat nyy punbgvp – juvpu jbhyq unir orra rabhtu – ohg
nyfb fhcreangheny zbafgref sebz bgure jbeyqf. Gung srryf yvxr gur
gbb-rnfl bcgvba. Znxr gurz evpu crbcyr jub'ir yrnearq zntvp sebz
ybbgrq bhgjbeyq gernfherf, naq sbe zr vg jbhyq unir jbexrq engure
orggre.)
It's superb in its content, but particularly in the early chapters I
found it sadly flabby. Yes, January has been brought up in a
deliberately sheltered way and doesn't really understand what's going
on at first (and it's good that her material comfort is shown as
something she finds genuinely hard to give up), but it was a bit of a
slog to get through all that setup to the meat of the book. Once one
does, it's great, helped by the writing that economically sketches
places and people in evocative ways. Similarly, there are no surprises
in the plot, but it's a standard story told well.
I'll certainly read more by Harrow, but I was sad that this had so
much crust before I got to the pie. Of the three Hugo-nominated novels
I've read at this point, I'd put it above A Memory Called Empire but
below The City in the Middle of the Night.
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