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Worlds Without End Blog

WoGF Review: Among Others by Jo Walton Posted at 5:24 PM by Stephen Poltz

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WWEnd Women of Genre Fiction Reading ChallengeStephen Poltz (spoltz)‘s love of anything SF and Fantasy was inspired by his childhood heroes Carl Sagan and JRR Tolkien. Oh yeah, and by watching cheesy ‘50s sci-fi movies on a black and white TV. He got a book-reading-reboot when he met his partner, Jacob, a voracious reader from a family of hard-core, genre fiction enthusiasts. After seeing a display of Hugo Award winning books at his local bookstore, Steve became obsessed with reading all the winners. Now, when not QAing software, learning Polish, or finding new books to read on WWEnd, he writes reviews on his blog It Started With The Hugos…


Among OthersIt’s great that a Hugo winner is a book about a science fiction fan. The attraction to science fiction, for many of us, begins when we’re young, feeling outcast, different, or otherwise disenfranchised from the mainstream. We find it a solace, a place where we can believe that there’s something else out there, something better, something more real than our cruel reality. The main character of this story is one of these fans, a teenage girl whose turns to SF to escape from the cruelty and craziness in her life.

Morwenna has a crazy, abusive mother from whom she’s escaped, an alcoholic father who she’s just met, and goes to a private boarding school where, of course, she doesn’t fit in. She is also the surviving twin of a car crash caused by her mother. However, she finds her peace in SF, and has read an unbelievable amount of SF and fantasy, mostly by some of the most esteemed and prolific authors. To her joy, she also finds an SF book club at her local library. She gets to do a little growing up through new relationships she forms with the members of the club as well as with other book lovers.

One other thing, Mori can do magic and can talk to the faeries. She spends most of her time protecting herself against the bad magic of her mother. She is originally from Wales where she often spoke with faeries. Now living with her father in England, she can see them, but doesn’t have much interaction with them.

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2012 British Fantasy Awards Posted at 9:15 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

Among OthersThe Ritual

The 2012 British Fantasy Awards were presented yesterday, September 30th, at FantasyCon in Brighton, England.  This year the award has been split into two awards in the best Novel category: The Robert Holdstock Award for best fantasy novel and The August Derleth Award for best horror novel.

The Robert Holdstock AwardAmong Others by Jo Walton (Tor, 2011)

The August Derleth AwardThe Ritual by Adam Nevill (Pan Macmillan, 2011)

See the complete list of winners in all categories on the BFS site.  Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.  Among Others has now won 3 out of the 5 awards it’s been nominated for including the Hugo and Nebula awards.

Review: Among Others by Jo Walton Posted at 10:35 AM by Daniel Roy

Triseult

Daniel Roy (triseult), has contributed over 30 reviews to WWEnd including 2 for the GMRC. Daniel is living his dream of travelling the world and you can read about some of his adventures on his blog Mango Blue.


Among OthersI love this book so much. It’s clever and inventive and filled with the kind of literary truth that leaves you breathless. Among Others received the Nebula Award, and even beat Miéville’s Embassytown to the Hugo. And you know what? Jo Walton totally deserved it.

Among Others is something new in a genre already known for invention: it’s what I like to call “speculative autofiction.” It features the strengths of both SF and autofiction, and each genre adds to the other to transcend either into something refreshing and exciting. Among Others is the story of Welsh-born Morwenna, who ends up in a boarding school in England following mysterious tragic events involving her mother and twin sister. The story is told in the form of Morwenna’s diary, as she chronicles her life in this strange new environment. But Morwenna happens to see faeries, and knows how to use magic spells.

The ambiguity surrounding Morwenna’s magic is a piece of intricate, subtle, and clever world-building. It’s not the kind of magic that allows you to throw fireballs; as a matter of fact, it’s so subtle that if you stop believing in it, it might suddenly seem like a series of fortunate coincidences. Likewise, it’s not clear whether the faeries are real, or if they’re the product of a hyperactive child’s imagination. Yet as a fantasy system, the faeries and their magic work perfectly. They’re clever and inventive, and they work on many levels. Ultimately, the title of the novel itself is a piece of similar ambiguity: it’s not clear if the “others” in the title refers to faeries, or to the mundane world in which Morwenna struggles to survive.

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