A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

This was way, way better-constructed than Earth Logic, more intellectually satisfying but less emotionally intense. Great plot construction and excellent stories for Zanja and two newish characters, the ex-soldier Damon and the new politician Seth. Clement's story was interesting but didn't get as much screentime; other characters made a big impression when they were onstage, but weren't onstage much.

There were lots of excellent individual scenes and revelations, of which my favorites involved the herding dogs.

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I re-read this and Earth Logic this weekend in preparation for the impending arrival of Water Logic. Fire Logic: Still great. Earth Logic: Large portions still work beautifully, but the characters still seem to have been subjected to an unexplained Gundam-verse-like insanity field.

Since my original review of the first book seems to have vanished from Green Man Review's archives, I'm reprinting it below. Please do not spoil the second book in comments. I will put up a spoilery review for it later.

If you prowl the fantasy sections of used bookshops in search of hidden gems, you may recognize the name of Laurie J. Marks. You may have come across one of her paperbacks, maybe the odd and eerie Watcher's Mask, or the dark yet quirky Dancing Jack. You may have read one of those, and felt that while it was populated with interestingly flawed characters, set in a detailed and believable world, and was quite original in an understated way, its strengths were also its weaknesses: too distant to allow emotional scenes to spill over with passion, too grounded to let fantasy take flight, too sober to give action sequences their full measure of excitement.

You may have nonetheless decided that Laurie J. Marks was a promising writer, and waited for a new book by her, hoping that in it her gifts would flourish and her shortcomings would be overcome. You would have waited a long time.

But that new book is here at last, and it fulfills those hopes. Fire Logic is a gritty and moving tale of guerilla warfare and magic in an occupied land.

A few of the people in the land of Shaftal are born with magical talents corresponding to the four elements of alchemy: earth, fire, water, and air. The G'deon is the most powerful earth witch in Shaftal, and is charged with protecting the country from invaders. But the last G'deon dies without passing his power on to a successor. Without that magical protection, Shaftal falls to foreign invaders, the Sainnites.

Two fire witches, the former ambassador Zanja and the soldier-scholar Emil, fight in a guerilla campaign to liberate their country. As years pass and their hopes of success grow ever-smaller, their lives intertwine with those of Medric, a Sainnite dissenter, and Karis, a half-giant earth witch who has great powers, but is addicted to a disabling drug that will kill her if she stops using it.

These characters and others have the prickly complexity of real people. They have hobbies and get in petty feuds, get pregnant and learn new trades, and make startling decisions that, in retrospect, seem inevitable.

Marks anchors her fantasy with a wealth of realistic detail, and the politics and social structures of the different cultures are believably complex and varied. In her world, guerilla commanders use charts to keep track of food deliveries, women have casual affairs as well as long-term relationships, and soldiers who are wounded in Chapter Six are still limping in Chapter Twenty.

But she doesn't skimp on the magic, which is more complex than its labels indicate: fire witches don't deal with literal fire, but have elusive mental powers of clairvoyance and insight; air witches know when people are lying, but can't tell if they're repeating false information that they believe is true. The magic systems are as intriguingly detailed as the mundane matters of war, but also encompass moments of free-flowing imagination, from a raven that carries a piece of a woman's soul to a river witch who doles out time in drops of water.

The realism that grounded Marks' other novels is also present in this one, but this time it's balanced by emotion. Her characters are passionate about love and war, the value of books and the fulfillment of blacksmithing, and that fire permeates the novel.

The book isn't perfect; it's sometimes over-explicit and preachy, there are some jarringly abrupt transitions, and there are too many silly names with apostrophes in them. But those are minor flaws. From the ethics of warfare to the dangers of love, Marks tackles serious topics in an unusually perceptive and nuanced fashion. It's an ambitious novel, and for the most part her ambition is borne out by her skill.

Though it's not indicated in any way on the book itself, it's the first in a series of four. And while it's unusually self-contained for the first of a series, it's clear by the end that the story is not yet over. It's a journey on which I'm eager to travel.