unspeakable horror

[hermetic]

I've not read Patricia C. Wrede's Thirteenth Child, and I don't think I will.

According to Jo Walton writing over at Tor, it's "Little House on the Prairie with mammoths and magic," apparently. Which sounds awesome, and something I'd love to read. Only, one of its basic premises posits an alternate America ("Columbia") that's empty, where the

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[chang3002]

From an AMazon review of the book:

I also deducted a star because of the worldbuilding, though I waffled on this. That's because I enjoyed a lot of it, such as the explanation of the world's three main magic systems (one corresponding to Europe, one corresponding to Asia, and one corresponding to Africa, though they all have different names here). And I loved the idea of a fantasy-alternate America populated with dragons and mammoths (!) and other "magical" wildlife. But I was actively offended by the apparent erasure of indigenous people from this America -- there's nothing on the continent but forests and animals, making for a spooky sort of Manifest Destiny message as the mostly-European settlers make their way across it. The author appears to have considered what this absence would do to her alternate America -- for example, all place-names based on Native naming have been changed (e.g. the Mississippi is now the "Mammoth river"). But this actually adds to the problem, because it suggests Native Americans contributed nothing to early American culture but names. Also, though there are a few black people present among the settlers and Asians are said to exist somewhere, there doesn't seem to have been a system of slavery (or I missed it) or labor exploitation in this world. So I can't help wondering how this alternate America has been settled so effectively. Slavery was evil, yes, but it's also an inescapable part of American history because of the desperate shortage of labor in the country's early years. There simply weren't enough Europeans to do it all, grow at such a breakneck pace, and still feed themselves -- so who did the work here? It's not just that. This world has a railroad system, but we see no Chinese people, so who laid the tracks? For that matter, where are the poor white people, struggling to eat when (at one point in the book) there's a string of crop failures? If they're mentioned, I didn't see them.

I think this is what bugs me most. The book's theme is that America is unique because of its diverse mix of cultures, yet the book fails to actually *depict* much of that.

The children and teens who this book is aimed at might not pick up on this, or they might be sufficiently dazzled by dragons!!! over the Mississippi!!! which I will admit almost distracted me. But I think a lot of kids are pretty savvy these days, and a lot of them *will* notice. I think it might leave the same bad taste in their mouths that it did me, ruining my enjoyment of an otherwise decent story. Because of that I cannot recommend this book.

So she apparently fails big time in recreating a West without Indians, civil war, black people, chinese or anybody but Eruopeans. Oh, dear.

[hermetic]

Sigh.

You know, I really don't know that I want to ever read this book. However, part of me feels like I should, so I can completely deconstruct it academically.

But then, just one of the key conceits alone is enough to disgust me.

Argh. Life was so much easier when the morality of readership wasn't something I thought much about--not that I'm actually complaining, mind you: it's much better this way. Just complex, is all.