Review: "Flesh and Fire" (Book 1 of the Vineart War) by Laura Anne Gilman

[megwrites]

Title: Flesh and Fire (Book 1 of the Vineart War)
Author: Laura Anne Gilman (suricattus; LauraAnneGilman.net)
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Pocket Books





Basic Plotline: Young Jerzy works as a slaves in the vineyard of House Malech. After sense something in the wine, he is chosen to be a student under Master Vineart Malech, learning all about spellwines and their magic. When Malech begins to hear strange rumors of disappearing islands, lost ships, and sea monsters as well as disasters in other vineyards, he suspects something is amiss and evil magic is to blame. To find out what it is, he sends Jerzy out - still a student and new to his abilities - to find out what it is.

The Positives: One can tell immediately that Gilman really did her homework on the winemaking aspects of the story, which I appreciated. I would have liked to have seen her show off her wine know-how a little more, and not just in the tastings, but in the actual process, but what she does include is fascinating to me. Then again, I'm one of those geeks who loves watching How It's Made. I don't know enough about wine or winemaking to outright critique or nitpick what's in the book, I do appreciate the level of detail. Taste is a hard thing to convey on the page, but she does a good job of giving the reader a sense of what Jerzy is experiencing when he tastes wine.

The book, overall, was enjoyable and fun to read, and that's what it should be. I must say that I liked it far, far more than I liked the author's Retrievers series, mostly because I have Issues with urban fantasy. Like a good sip of wine, this book takes its time unfolding its flavors and has some subtle and complex things going in it. There is a lot of built up suspense in the background, something not easily done.

The characters were well drawn and sympathetic for the most part. I liked Jerzy and sympathized with him for the most part. I also liked Malech, even though he was a slaveholder and in some ways a very tough character to make an audience like. Stern and not very emotional, I think it would have been easy for the author to come up with a cardboard character. Instead, the character comes across as a man holding with tradition, a slave in his own way, a master of his craft, and a mostly decent human being. Ao was one of my favorite characters and though he came late to the game, he made a big impression on me. The Vinearts are a quiet, somewhat dull kind of people in their way, so the worldly, energetic Ao made for a good contrast to the shy, hesitating, self-contained Jerzy.

The plot goes at a mostly steady pace, if nothing else, and that really helps shore up some of it's weak points. I think this book, oddly enough, could have been much longer without it affecting my enjoyment.

The worldbuilding itself is quite good, especially where the trading and wines are concerned. It's a pretty well made world, over all, with politics and nations that are believable for the most part. While some bits didn't quite resonate with me, for the most part I was completely engrossed in the world of the Vinearts.

The Negatives: While the mostly even pace is a plus, not a lot really happens in this book. Most of the book is concerned with Jerzy's training, showing a few occasional flashes of what is happening in the outside world to cause such wide spread turmoil - but those glimpses are brief. The last part of the book is quite rushed. The mission Jerzy is sent on, the one that begins tying the larger plot in with his training as a Vineart, happens very quickly after a book that takes a slow, loping pace through everything else. Gilman did an admirable job of building up suspense, but this book felt like so much backstory in the end.

The ending itself felt cut off and not in a convenient or logical spot, I felt. The last third of the book is where the plot actually begins, and the last twenty pages are where the action actually begins. There's a feeling of the movie stopping half way through with this one. While that's a great setup for a sequel, I suppose, it annoys me a bit. As a reader, I have this theory that writers with a series to hock shouldn't be stingy with the story. Tell me a complete tale, even if there is going to be a sequel. Getting the beginning of a story just at the end felt a bit like a cheat.

I didn't quite buy the "Sin Washer" concept in the book. There were too many similarities to metaphors made about Jesus ("he who washes away the sins of the world") and Christian theology/mythology, but this is more my personal taste, I think, than a misstep on the author's part.

I also felt uncomfortable with how slavery was depicted in this book. I'm not so much opposed to slavery being a part of a society in a book, but I think it does bring with it some obligations to really understand how it works and to understand that it is always - no matter how fair or kind the master - a degrading, dehumanizing, disastrous system. There is no such thing as "good slavery". And I didn't get that sense from this book. Jerzy, for the most part, seems to accept his own slavery and that of those around him even when he is free and does not fear being sent back. All the other slaves around him also accept it without much questioning or desire for freedom. Nobody seems to worry about the slaves rebelling or escaping. Their situation and why they aren't trying to escape is left vague. I don't buy the "well, we've got a hot meal and a place to sleep" theory, either. Especially since their conditions seem rather miserable at times. I think slavery is a difficult issue, especially for a writer who doesn't have that cultural legacy (so far as I know) in her background. There are points where the author eludes to Jerzy's past that he can't remember and sexual abuse at the hands of slavers and others in the sleep house, but it isn't really explored to the degree I would have felt better about.

CoC Score: 3.5. There were some characters described as being "dark skinned". Ao, I believe, is a CoC and a good one. Some characters could just as easily have been white characters with tans, however. The description of Ao as having "almond eyes" is a tick that I get annoyed about in fiction when non-Asian authors try to describe epicanthic folds. Because epicanthic folds do not look like almonds, not really. The story itself is mostly European based fantasy with some tinges of perhaps trading with Eastern-based peoples, and I was disappointed in this a bit. After all, the first wines were from Georgia and Iran, and China was making mixed grape/rice wines as early as 7000 BC.

Gender Score: 3. I was surprised at the absolute dearth of female characters of any substance in this book. The first and strongest female character we see, Thais, gets dead within a chapter of being introduced. Detta, the housekeeper, doesn't do much than fuss and take care of household money. Mahault comes very late to the book and except for helping Jerzy escape doesn't do overmuch either. All the Vinearts are men, and there's no reason given for this. It may well be explained in the next volume.

GLBT Score: 7. It's strange to give a score for this book. The Vinearts are reputedly asexual, and Jerzy deals with that through the book. I count asexuality under the umbrella of "queer" because it is a mode of sexuality that I believe does suffer oppression and erasure in our culture, in that respect it does very well. There are two main asexual characters in this book, and they're portrayed very positively. There is one character who could either be homosexual or bisexual (depending) who makes a pass at Jerzy, which he refuses. The asexuality of the Vinearts is not explained either, and so I'm hesitant to make any proclamations until I see the rest of the series. I'm still waiting to see whether there is going to be a connection made between Jerzy's sexual abuse as a child and his asexuality or if there is something else behind it.

Ablism: 0. There are no overt Persons With Disabilities in this book. There is a mention of an elderly Vineart who doesn't let others see him using a cane, but the rest of the book contains normally abled people.


ETA: The post was cut off and I forgot the last bit of it! Eep!