One above the others
May. 16th, 2007 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysSometimes an author can really surprise you. I have read a few of Liz Williams' books and had formed a fairly clear opinion about them. They were a light enjoyable modern space opera with straightforward plots, simple characters and little in the way of subtext but written in a clean readable prose style. However, the buzz was that Darkland was different and this certainly proved to be the case.
The opening of Darkland is very intense - rape, assassination and religious oppression are forced into your consciousness. The writing in the first 40 pages of this book are very powerful. It sets the scene and the tone for the rest of the book. The scene is still that of a space opera but the tone is dark and laden with meaning. The writing for the rest of the book is not so powerful, but then I don't think you could stand reading at that level all the way through. What the big start does is give the rest of the book a momentum. The lean prose style just allows that momentum to be maintained.
But there is more than a big start that sets this book apart from Williams' other work. Structurally it is more complex than usual - a dual POV narrative helps with pacing and keeps tension high. More than this though is the strong subtextual theme of dominance in relationships that underpins the story. This fleshes out the characters but is important in its own right. Taking it all together it makes for a truely excellent piece of fiction.
One afterthought which does not impact on the quality of the story but which interests me is the nature of the trappings of the universe that has been constructed in this world. It is space opera and has things like faster than light travel, many inhabited worlds, genetic manipulation and so forth. It also has obvious psychic powers. A few decades ago, this would have been normal. It was an act of faith amongst SF writers that such powers would be uncovered and developed. These days it seems much less likely and such powers have drifted from science to fantasy. It seems a little odd to see them cropping up here - odd not bad. Thinking about it a little, I guess the desire for such powers has never gone away and they do crop up from time to time in harder science fiction. It has just been a while since I have seen it so blatantly.
The opening of Darkland is very intense - rape, assassination and religious oppression are forced into your consciousness. The writing in the first 40 pages of this book are very powerful. It sets the scene and the tone for the rest of the book. The scene is still that of a space opera but the tone is dark and laden with meaning. The writing for the rest of the book is not so powerful, but then I don't think you could stand reading at that level all the way through. What the big start does is give the rest of the book a momentum. The lean prose style just allows that momentum to be maintained.
But there is more than a big start that sets this book apart from Williams' other work. Structurally it is more complex than usual - a dual POV narrative helps with pacing and keeps tension high. More than this though is the strong subtextual theme of dominance in relationships that underpins the story. This fleshes out the characters but is important in its own right. Taking it all together it makes for a truely excellent piece of fiction.
One afterthought which does not impact on the quality of the story but which interests me is the nature of the trappings of the universe that has been constructed in this world. It is space opera and has things like faster than light travel, many inhabited worlds, genetic manipulation and so forth. It also has obvious psychic powers. A few decades ago, this would have been normal. It was an act of faith amongst SF writers that such powers would be uncovered and developed. These days it seems much less likely and such powers have drifted from science to fantasy. It seems a little odd to see them cropping up here - odd not bad. Thinking about it a little, I guess the desire for such powers has never gone away and they do crop up from time to time in harder science fiction. It has just been a while since I have seen it so blatantly.