It will come as no surprise to anyone who has read this blog for any length of time that I am a massive fan of Catherynne M. Valente (I think at least 2 of her books have made it into my best books of the year list, and this year's marvelous Space Opera is looking good to do that again this year). I picked Deathless up at Worldcon in 2011. So being a fan and seeming to read most of what she writes as she writes and publishes it why did it take me until now to read Deathless when I already had it in my possession?
I'm going to plead lack of time. My wife and I bought a massive amount of books at the 2011 Worldcon. Down here is Australia books are pretty heavily taxed and they cost way more than they do elsewhere, especially in the US. Back in 2011 the Australian dollar was at parity with the US dollar, this meant that we were effectively paying half price. It's fair to say that we went a little bit nuts (we had to buy another suitcase to fit all the books into!). Deathless was probably a casualty of that. We arrived home with a suitcase full of books to read through (we may not have read them all even now), and Deathless got a bit lost into the black hole that is our personal library until I embarked on this quest.
I was predisposed to like Deathless for a few reasons. Chief among them being that it was a Valente. In my opinion this woman's shopping list would make fascinating reading. I think she's actually an even better writer now than she was in 2011, though. Another was that I'd come off reading a Michael Sullivan, which I had not liked, and this would be a great refresher to that less than pleasant task.
It is a great book and so incredibly well written. It's more than one book, though. It's not long or big, but it tells such a massive story. The tone changes as the events around the book, do.
It's the story of Russia, pre and post Revolution, how it dealt with the fall of the monarchy, the rise of Communism, the Civil War, Stalinism and the tragedy that was Russia in WWII.
It's mostly seen through the eyes of Marya Morevna, who marries Koschei the Deathless and observes the events around her and how they transform both the mythical world that Koschei inhabits and the real world that she walks out of and into throughout the book.
As well as featuring Valente's marvelous facility with language and concept there are also things like the communist collective of domovoi, who were at once amusing and whimsical as well as being sinister and ultimately tragic. There was more than a bit of Animal Farm in them.
It was really quite an achievement by Valente and I honestly don't think any other writer currently working in the field would have thought of doing this, and if they had I doubt they'd have the skill to pull it off as successfully as Valente does almost effortlessly.
The W's too are looking promising. I've got a Jo Walton trilogy lined up.
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