Kelso, Sylvia: Amberlight
Amberlight
Writer: Sylvia Kelso
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 260
This is a really tricky review for me to write. I liked the book, but I had some serious problems with it. It's hard, in a way, to be a writer in an academic setting. Not only am I constantly critiquing other people's work, but I'm constantly examining and evaluating published material because that's one of the easiest ways I learn. That's why I write these reviews, but when I come across a book like this, it's hard to gather my thoughts in such a way that makes my point, is coherent, but does the book justice.
Paula Guran is the editor of Juno Books. From time to time, I'll lurk in her blog, reading the latest news about the publishing company and its authors. I have a keep interest in this imprint, partly because I've become fascinated with small presses, but also because there's a chance that one day I might write something I'd want to pitch to them. I haven't yet read many of their titles, not yet, but quite a few of them have caught my interest, and Kelso's Amberlight was at the top of the list.
I heard about Amberlight on Guran's blog. At the moment of writing this review, I don't have the opportunity to browse through the archives and find the specific post regarding this book that caught my eye, so bear with me, as I'm relying on my oh-so-faulty memory. But that faulty memory tells me this: Juno had difficulty getting booksellers to buy this book. That the content scared them, and they were afraid it wouldn't sell. This led to a publishing decision of putting some serious weight behind the book and marketing it as both a hardcover and a mass-market paperback. Guran encouraged her blog readers to give the book a shot, because she believed in it, and even though the content might be controversial, the book deserved to find its audience.
If I'm wrong, and I very well could be, please correct me in the comments. :)
What about the content is controversial? Matriarchal society. Gender reversals. Male rape.
I think that just about covers it.
For the sake of this review, I'm going to divide it into two sections: The Good and The Bad (No Ugly). I think it's the only way I can organize my thoughts without babbling like an idiot. There will be spoilers, but in the case of this book, I don't think knowing how the book turns out in any way diminishes the story. However, if you feel otherwise, just skip to the bottom of the entry, or the text outside of the cut.
The Good
Matriarchal society. Gender reversals. Male rape.
I admit I worried a bit when I realized (as I didn't remember this when I finally picked up the book) this fantasy portrayed a matriarchal society with the expected gender reversals. I worried because there was obviously a love interest. And what worried me was that even though I hadn't grown up reading the decades and decades worth of battle-of-the-sexes SF, I've read a lot of criticism surrounding it, and know the stories well enough to recognize the patterns and glean the messages the story is trying to get across. In BOTS SF, society is matriarchal in some form or fashion, men are second-class citizens (often treated as women are in current society, and by current, I mean however women were treated at the time said story was written), and men from the OUTSIDE come in, be their manly selves, and either try and take over the women's society (sometimes they fail), or one man will catch the eye of a particular woman, and with a specific physical encounter, she becomes enamored of him and turns her back on everything she knows to be with him.
Amberlight is fantasy, not SF. But the elements were there. For a good portion of the book, I worried that Tellurith's obsession with the outlander (Alkhes) would cloud her judgment and she'd throw away everything she had just to protect him and be with him. And if you wanted to look at this story SUPER-SIMPLISTICALLY, that's what happens.
But that's no fun, and it teaches the reader nothing. So let's dig a little deeper, shall we?
Tellurith is a House-Head of Amberlight, one of the Thirteen. Amberlight's main resource is a pearl-rock called qherrique, which only women can mine and shape. House-Heads have the ability to hear what the qherrique is telling them, so when Tellurith finds the outlander beaten and raped in the bad part of town, she takes him in, because the qherrique tells her to. She needs to know who this man is and what he's doing in Amberlight, but when he finally recovers, he has no memory. But little hints-the type of boots he wears, his accent, his salutes, tell Tellurith enough: this man might be a spy, and she needs to know what he's after before he figures it out.
But he won't cooperate with anyone else but her. So she plays a dangerous game with him, revealing bits of information about Amberlight and pulling out details about the surrounding countryside to figure out what he remembers, what slips naturally. Everyone else wants her to turn him over to the Thirteen, where they'll use a drug that'll-to my basic understanding-destroy his mind, but Tellurith can't do that. She's attracted to him, even though she won't admit it, and feels responsibility for his care.
Men in Amberlight are second-class citizens. They live in towers where they learn the arts, focus on cosmetics and clothing, and do whatever it takes to please their women. I really loved the details of the male culture in Amberlight, because in many ways, it's a stroke of genius. The role reversals here were startling, and almost funny from a certain point of view. Meeting Sarth, Tellurith's husband, is a wonderful scene that shows just how different these men really are from the usual fare, especially the outlander, who Tellurith comes to name Alkhes.
But not all the gender-reversals are funny. Alkhes was raped and beaten, and is now terribly afraid of close contact with women. There's a part of me that wishes we'd gotten his point of view, because all too often, we get scenes from the woman's POV getting raped, but rarely the man's. But we don't here, and that's not really the point, other than to show that women in this society can be just as brutal as men are in the usual society.
Another disturbing element of Amberlight culture is that male babies are turned out to the elements to die. It keeps the population under control, but more important, it keeps the male part of the population under control so they don't get too rowdy. House-Heads are expected to give birth to a daughter first (the heir), and Tellurith has given birth three times, and all three times, sons. Needless to say, none of her children are alive.
Looking at the male culture of Amberlight and comparing them to the parallels in our own history, myths, and legends, there's some delicious stuff that's really fascinating to consider. I love that about this book, because it raises interesting questions about what a women's society would really be like, and while it irks me a bit that the traditional route of women-in-charge-are-just-as-brutal-as-men is taken, it serves the story and is the catalyst for change.
I also loved the relationship between Tellurith and Alkhes. This is definitely romantic fantasy, which in some ways can conflict with its feminist elements (I should note: homosexual relationships are addressed in a seemingly positive manner, but if you blink, you'll miss it), but fortunately, Kelso does not take the traditional BOTS route. Alkhes is really the fascinating character of this book, even though I have a beef with amnesiac characters, because he's the one who really develops. Once his memory returns and he knows what he's supposed to do, he does it, but yet never emotionally betrays Tellurith, and through-out the siege of Amberlight, is always vulnerable to her safety. The scenes between Tellurith and Alkhes (as the general) are amazingly touching and well done, because not only do we see a new side to Alkhes, but we see the sincerity of his emotion.
In the end, neither one of them budge. At least, they don't budge for love. Both are driven to make decisions based on messages from the qherrique, which pit them against each other until the very end, when the qherrique achieves its own end, and makes the source of Tellurith's and Alkhes's differences moot. In the end, the couple ends up together, in a way that's believable and not sappy or sentimental.
Through the book, Tellurith is always putting the good of her House and her city first, even when it breaks her heart. One could consider her a betrayer because of how she handled Alkhes, but never once did I feel like she was making the wrong decision concerning him. I just felt really, really bad when his memory finally returned and he ran.
I should also point out the fact that this is also a fantasy that doesn't feature your usual white-bread medieval characters, but for reasons I'll get into below, I only knew this because of the absolutely gorgeous cover. The model they used for Tellurith kicks ass.
And can I just say I loved the fact they referred to men as dangles? That's just awesome.
The Bad
I need to make one thing very clear: I love present tense. Thanks to my experience reading literary/contemporary fiction, I'm very comfortable with present tense. When I hear a genre book is written in present tense, I clap my hands with glee and want to read the book for that sole purpose. Why? Because I like WRITING present tense, and any time I hear arguments against it when it comes to genre, I scoff and bluster before I listen to those said arguments.
And now, I'm going to make them.
The thing is, when done well, present tense isn't obtrusive at all. You don't notice it. First-person present is the easiest to do, IMHO, but third-person present tense can also be done very well and effectively. Just look at Allen Steele's Coyote.
Amberlight is written in third-person present tense. And I have to wonder why, because it really, really distracted me from the book.
Here's the argument against present tense in general, an argument I didn't believe AT ALL until I experienced it myself reading--I think--Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon. The argument is this: present tense gives every action, every moment, every scene the same weight. It's almost like surreal, a dream-state, and it's hard for the reader to find their footing. The reason it usually works better in first person is because we're in a character's head and at least in that case, there's something tangible to latch on to, because it's all about voice. In third person, that's not really the case.
I was never grounded in this book. Worse, I felt like I was strong-armed back from most of it. There's a lot of telling, a serious lack of description (which I'll explain in a moment), and worse, poorly handled flashbacks that confused the living snot out of me because I kept getting lost in the narrative.
And if this book hadn't been written in present tense, I may not have noticed.
I don't know why the author chose this style for this book. Having not read Kelso's work before, I don't know if this is her natural voice or if it's something she did intentionally for this novel. If it's intentional, I can only guess that she may have wanted to create an additional difference between her book and your usual, male-driven, fantasy-fare, and present tense was the way to do it. I don't know. I could be wrong. Whatever the reason, or lack thereof, I think the book would've been much stronger in past tense, because there's enough in the text that jars the reader from his/her expectations, and the present tense doesn't need to make us fight any more than necessary.
And let's talk about expectations: I said earlier it took me a moment to realize this was a matriarchal society. For starters, the names were gender neutral. It was easy to assume that if Tellurith is being followed by a guard, the guard is male. It's easy to assume that the thief they're chasing is male. That when they find the outlander guy beaten on the street, that he was beaten by men.
It's easy to assume because of our expectations as readers, but it's also easy to assume because Kelso's description doesn't allow us to WATCH what's happening. We get slammed with setting descriptions that are pretty general save for the qheerique, we get a barrage of names that could be people, places, or gods, and we never see anything truly through Tellurith's eyes. The narrative is a camera, and it's focused on all the wrong things.
The times the camera is focused on the right things, it's good, but even physical descriptions were lacking: all I could usually ever see of Alkhes was the BLACK EYES which were commented upon way too often and that particular wing of hair. The only tangible description I really noticed about skin color was Tellurith's hand when she confronted a pick-pocket on the street, and the mention of Tellurith and Alkhes looking at their reflections in the mirror (I should note that I never saw either Tellurith or Alkhes as pale skinned, thanks to the awesome cover). I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I remember (the description of Alkhes in the men's cosmetics was freaking awesome), and again the style was such that I kept missing the details I wanted or needed, or usually, those details just weren't there.
Can I blame all these problems on the present-tense? No, that'd be silly. But the present-tense was such that it called my attention to everything else. If a narrative voice engages me well enough, I can ignore a LOT of things, but otherwise, I zero in. The times I relaxed the most with the book was during sections of dialogue (when I could figure out who was saying what, and that was 90% of the time).
Despite my problems with the book, I really did enjoy it on the whole. That's saying something. At the end of the year, Juno's releasing the sequel, Riversend, and I think I'll be picking it up. The social arc as well as the character development is really interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the characters go from the mess they've made.
Would I recommend it? I think it's worth reading if you have an interest in feminist fantasy, and there's a chance that you might not have the same problems with the narrative style that I did. It taxed me, but I was still very interested in what was happening, and I think that for anyone with feminist interests when it comes to fantasy texts, it's worth getting through. I can see why so many people are backing this book.
And if you do read it, holler, because I want to hear what you think about it. :)
Next up: Blood and Iron: A Novel of the Promethean Age by Elizabeth Bear