Graham, Jo: Black Ships
Black Ships (2008)
Written by: Jo Graham
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 119/310 (Trade Paperback)
This is one of those books that I bought so long ago (really, 2008 was a LONG time ago in shopping-memory), that I'm not sure why I picked it up. Striking cover and compelling title, certainly, but I do seem to remember not falling for it right away, which makes me think I must've read some positive reviews before giving in. That said, it's languished on my shelf since I bought the thing, and now that I'm trying to make a positive effort to reduce my TBR pile, I grabbed this one off the shelf.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, she is destined to counsel kings.
When nine black ships appear, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must decide between the life she was born for and a most perilous adventure - to join the remnant of her mother's people in their desperate flight. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest, and only she can dare the gate of the Underworld to lead him to his destiny.
In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.
Review style: if you're paying attention to the stats above, you know I didn't finish this sucker. I'll put the reasons why behind the cut and then summarize at the bottom of the review who I think would prefer this book instead. No spoilers, because obviously, I have nothing to spoil.
So this was the book I was anguishing over during the weekend: to finish or not to finish? It's a tough question when the book in question isn't offensive in any way, when it doesn't hit any pet peeves or irritations or biases of mine. But yet, I simply wasn't engaged by this book, so I needed to step back and ask myself why.
For starters, Black Ships follows in the fine, proud tradition of Marion Zimmer Bradley: take one historical/mythological event and tell it through the eyes of a women. Such tales often have feminists contexts. This is the kind of tale that I fell in love with when I first discovered it. And oddly, I just as quickly fell out of love. Here's why:
I've read over half of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon (I know, for shame) and I've seen the mini-series. I've also read from Bradley Priestess of Avalon and Firebrand. Oddly, of those three, the one I like best is the one I haven't finished yet, but Firebrand is a fair second place. Priestess of Avalon is a LOW third, and that's due to the fact that it was written/completed after Marion Zimmer Bradley died by Diana L. Paxson, and that book was the one that soured by taste for this type of story, for reasons I can't fully articulate, other than to say the writing wasn't nearly as powerful as Bradley's.
From there, I've read unpublished student manuscripts in the same vein. But most unfortunately for Jo Graham, I read Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia, which was published the same year as Black Ships. That, in my opinion, is very, very bad timing for Jo Graham, and that, obviously, is not her fault.
But the fact remains that I feel I've already read this story. Hell, when I read Lavinia, I felt like I'd already read that story, and I hadn't at that time. Certainly, these two books are different. Le Guin's takes place after they discover the land that will be Rome, whereas Graham's starts far sooner than that. But something about seeing some of the same characters (even though Graham's heroine starts off as Gull who becomes Linnea who becomes Pythia and may not be the same woman Le Guin chose to write about--I wouldn't know since I didn't finish. They may not be the same character.) in a story that I already know the outcome of pretty much takes away any potential interest.
There's that and the differences in writing styles. I'll be fair: there's nothing wrong with Graham's writing style, but I'd be hard pressed to call it lyrical, which is something these types of stories tend to be. I mean, think of it: feminist re-tellings of epic myths and legends. Shouldn't the language used to tell the story be as epic and lyrical as the story itself? That's the first thing I noticed about Black Ships, that the language felt a little plain. It didn't sweep me into the world, but nor was it dull and boring. And then I kept comparing it to Le Guin, which really isn't fair of me, because Graham's book is a debut, whereas Le Guin's is, well, let's just say Le Guin's a veteran, and she's been writing a long time. But my point is that while I wasn't in love with Le Guin's tale, her writing alone made it worth it. It kept me going. Not so with Graham.
And in the 119 pages that I read, I started noticing how detached our narrator was. There was a real lack of sensory detail for starters, let alone actual reactions to what's happening. And this goes hand in hand: we're told over and over about the ships and what it's like being on one during horrible storms, and multiple times, people vomit all over Pythia's feet. (Seriously, this happens more than once). First time, I liked the detail, given Pythia's position and the fact that this is exactly what would happen if a bunch of people are cramped into a captain's quarters in the middle of a storm. But when it kept happening, I realized that Pythia not only NEVER REACTED to this (is she a sympathetic vomiter? Does she have to fight the urge to hurl herself? Or can she tolerate it?), and not only does she never react to this, but we never FEEL the sensation.
Oh, gross, why does the READER want to know what it's like to have vomit splattered on someone's feet? Well, that's not the most appealing example, but it's a sensory detail, yes? Now think of such details beyond the obvious, gross one. I never FELT anything, I simply saw it. Pythia is a detached narrator, and perhaps that's due to the type of story being told, but unfortunately, that was just one too many detachments, because I was already detached once I started reading.
Another detachment was the names used of places I know so well by other names. Troy is Wilusa, and Mycenae is something that doesn't really ring a bell, and as a result, I found myself confusing people's names with names of countries. Also a problem for me was the nicknames of characters I should've recognized off the bat: Neas for Aeneas, Xandros for Alexandros. I admit I found the glossary in the back a little too late, perhaps that would've helped, but oh well. Regardless of names, I never latched on to the characters, was never emotionally involved. It's no wonder I put the book down, because I've got too much to catch up on.
My Rating
Couldn't Finish It: I feel bad about it, I really do. However, there are a lot of reasons I wasn't able to get into the book, and most aren't even the author's fault. I think readers who enjoy the whole woman's stance on a historical/mythological event (readers who aren't burnt out on such stories, that is), will find this book far more agreeable than I did. I will warn readers who've already got Le Guin's Lavinia under their belts, that you might find Graham's premise a little TOO familiar, even though from what I can tell, Graham and Le Guin are telling different sides of the same story using different heroines. Maybe readers who've read both can provide more illuminating commentary and comparisons in the comments! That said, I am sorry I couldn't get into this, but there were a lot of things stacked against the book that I never realized when I got it, and that's just something that can't be helped.
Cover Commentary: I love the cover featured in this review. It just grabs me and makes me want to look at the book. The coloring is fabulous too. I'm not so fond of the mass market edition, the cover that is featured behind the cut. I mean, it certainly shows better the type of society the story takes place in, and it's pretty in its own right, but this type of art really doesn't appeal to me personally. Also, it doesn't show the black ships, so there. ;)
Next up: Last Dragon by J.M. McDermott