Steph Swainston is very hot right now. The eminences of speculative fiction have been falling over themselves to shower her first novel, The Year of Our War, with praise; my own copy of the book contains glowing quotations from China Mieville, M. John Harrison, and Richard Morgan.

And a great deal of this praise is deserved. The world that Swainston has created is a weird and wonderful one that deliberately eschews all of the conventions of fantasy. It seems there was once a God, who has since left the world for unknown reasons. In his place he has left the immortal Emperor, who also has the power to grant immortality to a select circle of humans. For reasons that also escape comprehension, the Emperor has decided to create a Circle of archetypes: his immortals will be ideals, like the Archer, the Messenger, the Sailor, and so on. If an immortal is killed, or bested in one of the periodic contests that ensure that immortals keep on their toes, his or her position is filled with a new immortal instead.

Jant Comet is the Messenger. That's because he, unique among everybody else in the world, can fly. Of course, some other people have wings (which, in an inspired bit of anatomical awareness, are attached at the base of the spine rather than at the shoulders); but Jant is the only human who can actually use them to fly around, perhaps because his blood derives from both the winged human race and a very light, almost feral human race. Jant is also a drug user. He shoots up a substance he calls cat (otherwise known as scolopendium), which induces in him a terrible euphoria and seemingly physical entrance into a strange and disturbing alternate world that he calls the Shift. But being a drug user isn't his only fault. He's far from a hero, not even significant enough to be an anti-hero. Despite his Immortal status, he fluctatues wildly between bravery and cowardice, pride and abjectness, consideration and utter self-absorption.

The purpose of the Circle is never very clear. But at least at the start of the novel, they--and the rest of the human race--are engaged in an ongoing battle with the dreaded Insects, a swarm-like alien horde that emerges seemingly from nowhere and tears through villages and people. It's a never-ending battle: the single-minded Insects are inexhaustible and mindless, and it seems only a matter of time before the Insects break the current war of attrition and take over the entire small, suspiciously square-shaped continent.

There's no doubt that Swainston's imagination is fertile, almost feverish. Like all the other reviewers, I really enjoyed the world she invented--so dark, and so full of wonderful little details, all of them grotesque. There's also a refreshing lack of affect in this book. The story is set in a medievalish setting, true; but the characters wear jeans and t-shirts and swear (in modern English); they gossip and bicker; they make snide remarks. Much of the weirdness of the novel comes from the jarring juxtaposition of its distinct fantasy setting and its basically twentieth-century characters.

But I couldn't really get into this book. My biggest complaint is that it's just too needlessly obscure. For instance, all of the immortals have a half dozen names--all of which are used interchangeably, sometimes in the same conversation, to endless confusion. Jant, for instance, has his proper name: Jant Shira. (Other people share the last name Shira, for reasons that are later made apparent, but I won't go into that source of confusion for now.) Once he becomes an immortal, though, he gets at least two other names: one is his archetype, Messenger; and other seems to be something akin to a superhero name: Comet. Another important character is called Lightning (his superhero name), or the Archer (his archetypal name), or his given name, which I have forgotten. And so on, for at least five or six important Immortals, and perhaps three or four incidental ones. Why do this? I understand that it might be realistic, but it makes this relatively short novel that much harder to understand.

Then there's the writing. Some people seem to really like it. I found that The Year of Our War was awkwardly written at best. I know Swainston was striving not to create a high fantasy atmosphere, with thee's and thou's and "Garboth smote the evil beast with his great blade Wretched, and his heart sang as the dread Arkpa unleashed a wild howl and fell to the ground." But there's a fine line between writing that is flip and hiply disrespectful and writing that is amateurish and uninspired, and while Swainston often writes frankly beautiful sentences ("How can I describe flying? You try to describe what it is like to walk."), she also sometimes lapses into mediocrity. (And sometimes just plain lameness, as with the Immortal who alludes to cliches with keywords only: e.g., "Pot. Kettle.")

Finally, The Year of Our War is fitfully plotted. There are really two parallel plotlines. One is the battle against the Insects. The other is internal politicking among the Immortals. Neither plotline advances very far or very evenly in this book: the war against the Insects is at a standstill most of the way, until a crucial discovery is made at the end; and the bickering among the Immortals is simultaneously confusing and petty. To be fair, Swainston has made clear that this book is only the first of a series. But each book in a series should do its part to advance the storyline and reach a satisfying conclusion.

I was very excited to read this novel, but it ended up disappointing me. Perhaps it's a matter of Swainston only presenting a small part of her overall creation. There are intriguing hints in here about Jant and the two worlds he inhabits (the real world, and the Shift), and it's clear that the Insects will have a major role to play in future volumes. But standing alone, and its outstanding imagination aside, The Year of Our War left me cold.

Copyright © 2005 Steven Wu