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Here is a fantasy novel completely out of step with nearly every other American fantasy novel I’ve ever read, a very low-key, low-stakes mystery set entirely at a fair and revolving around a valuable pendant which was either magically transformed into a fruit or else switched for one.
The mystery is nicely constructed and the characters are likable if lightly sketched, but the real star here is the equally low-key but intriguing and original worldbulding. The culture, economics, family structures, assumptions, and history are unobtrusively presented when relevant rather than info-dumped, so if you pay attention, you get a fascinating portrait of a very different world and can take some guesses as to how it came about. In the Kindle edition, Karr has an afterword where she confirms some of my guesses about what she calls “The Gentle World,” and leaves other aspects unexplained. She mentions that parts were inspired by an obscure musical, but doesn’t name it. If anyone ever reads it and figures it out, let me know.
It is indeed a very gentle novel, a mystery without murder, a portrait of conflict and its resolution in a world that lacks the worst elements of ours. There are a ton of fun and inventive details about culture and magic. The main character, Torin, is a toymaker (this includes ritual objects like “marriage toys,” which are offered as a proposal) who can imbue some of his creations with temporary life; food can be temporarily transformed into something more appetizing, but as it will revert inside your stomach you need to make sure that the original was edible and not something you’re allergic to.
For all its extremely small scale and placid surface, this is an understatedly ambitious book, though in keeping with its world where people can get physically sick from too much pride or at least believe they can, it presents itself humbly.
If this sounds like the sort of thing you would like, you will like it. Out of print, but available on Kindle for $2.99.
Many of Karr's other books are now available on ebook. I like her swords and sorcery Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne novels, which also have a small scale and understatedly unusual worldbuilding. (Note: they are not that dark overall, but they do involve rape of both men and women as it's believed that sorcerers lose their power if they lose their virginity.)
At Amberleaf Fair
The mystery is nicely constructed and the characters are likable if lightly sketched, but the real star here is the equally low-key but intriguing and original worldbulding. The culture, economics, family structures, assumptions, and history are unobtrusively presented when relevant rather than info-dumped, so if you pay attention, you get a fascinating portrait of a very different world and can take some guesses as to how it came about. In the Kindle edition, Karr has an afterword where she confirms some of my guesses about what she calls “The Gentle World,” and leaves other aspects unexplained. She mentions that parts were inspired by an obscure musical, but doesn’t name it. If anyone ever reads it and figures it out, let me know.
It is indeed a very gentle novel, a mystery without murder, a portrait of conflict and its resolution in a world that lacks the worst elements of ours. There are a ton of fun and inventive details about culture and magic. The main character, Torin, is a toymaker (this includes ritual objects like “marriage toys,” which are offered as a proposal) who can imbue some of his creations with temporary life; food can be temporarily transformed into something more appetizing, but as it will revert inside your stomach you need to make sure that the original was edible and not something you’re allergic to.
For all its extremely small scale and placid surface, this is an understatedly ambitious book, though in keeping with its world where people can get physically sick from too much pride or at least believe they can, it presents itself humbly.
If this sounds like the sort of thing you would like, you will like it. Out of print, but available on Kindle for $2.99.
Many of Karr's other books are now available on ebook. I like her swords and sorcery Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne novels, which also have a small scale and understatedly unusual worldbuilding. (Note: they are not that dark overall, but they do involve rape of both men and women as it's believed that sorcerers lose their power if they lose their virginity.)
At Amberleaf Fair
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I am still rather seriously invested in discerning the substrate musical, but I am glad the book holds up as itself: I also like Karr's Tanglelands fantasies and their world that looks only superficially like other sword-and-sorceries.
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"The toy involved, a rare pendant from beyond the western ocean, had either disappeared from Valdart's tent overnight or been transformed into a citron."
Welp, I'm in.
This idea of the gentle world catches me.
I love the idea of writing that is happy to do a beautiful job on a smaller scale. I actually sigh a little bit whenever series-type-things I like start to drift towards cataclysmic stakes. Me, I like really well-evoked low stakes, or high-personal, low-universe stakes, or sneaky high stakes that creep up on you by surprise.
...and of course now I, too, would like to solve the meta-mystery. Perhaps some sort of friendly wager is called for.
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I've kind of already put my hypothetical money on Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore based strictly on sheer volume of previously established fannishness; I personally would not describe it as either obscure or a musical, but if Karr could sneak a Murgatroyd into a Regency romance, I fully believe she'd try it with a fantasy-mystery.
We can both cheerfully lose together.
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You're welcome! It was not where I expected things to end up!
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I will endeavor to find a print copy and let you know! In the meantime, I'm relying on
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She also says that Dilys is a self-insert whose existence changes the romantic pairings of the original.
Finally, she says the plot structure (separate mysteries which may or may not be interlinked) was inspired by the Judge Dee novels.
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Absolutely none of this changes my belief that I am watching a writer live their best life.
Thank you!
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I also heard that unless you read very carefully you can't tell the narrator's/hero's gender, is that true?
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I enjoyed Karr's The Idylls of the Queen, and was a bit conflicted about The Gallows in the Greenwood, which is a Robin Hood story from the point of view of a female Sheriff of Nottingham, and is set less in any historical period than in the world of the old Robin Hood ballads. It didn't entirely work for me, but I found it very interesting.
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I had no idea about the musical, that is interesting.
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I am so glad you reminded me of this -- it is even better now than I found it in the 80s.