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A review by peapod_boston
Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
4.0
I've read one book by Bear before and, at the time, struggled a bit. I enjoyed parts of it as I was reading, but found my thoughts returning again and again in the months after I finished. Any author that has that impact deserves a second chance, as it usually means I just wasn't in the right mood.
So I picked up "Range of Ghosts." On some levels, it's a "conventional" fantasy. By the end, a mismatched group of varying skills and origins embarks on a quest across half a world. But Bear provides enough twists and variations to keep it interesting. Her characters are complex and nuanced, their motivations not always clear to themselves or the reader. Her setting--a fantastical version of Asia in the time of the great Khans--is different enough from the run of the mill Western Europe clones that it feels, well, fantastical. She uses enough real cultural and physical detail to feel grounded, but doesn't bury you in research, and her magic feels magical. It's not just a new kind of science but something that is broad and sweeping and mystical. The ever-changing sky is one of the most interesting conceits in recent fantasy, and provides a lovely signal that this is not just faux-history--this is Fantasy.
Finally, her prose is spot-on. Clean, elegant, but with some lovely polish and turns of phrase. She never lingers too long on anything, but is always evocative. I roared through this novel but was never tempted to skim, as I might miss an apt phrase or choice detail. She spends less time in her character's heads than many modern writers, and yet conveys great nuance about their characters through their thoughts and actions.
I've been keeping my eye out for fantasies that scratch that archetypal itch, that world-build without sacrificing magic to realism, and that give me a tale of adventure and daring, of quests and sacrifice and magic. I found it here. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel and taking another crack at some of her earlier books.
So I picked up "Range of Ghosts." On some levels, it's a "conventional" fantasy. By the end, a mismatched group of varying skills and origins embarks on a quest across half a world. But Bear provides enough twists and variations to keep it interesting. Her characters are complex and nuanced, their motivations not always clear to themselves or the reader. Her setting--a fantastical version of Asia in the time of the great Khans--is different enough from the run of the mill Western Europe clones that it feels, well, fantastical. She uses enough real cultural and physical detail to feel grounded, but doesn't bury you in research, and her magic feels magical. It's not just a new kind of science but something that is broad and sweeping and mystical. The ever-changing sky is one of the most interesting conceits in recent fantasy, and provides a lovely signal that this is not just faux-history--this is Fantasy.
Finally, her prose is spot-on. Clean, elegant, but with some lovely polish and turns of phrase. She never lingers too long on anything, but is always evocative. I roared through this novel but was never tempted to skim, as I might miss an apt phrase or choice detail. She spends less time in her character's heads than many modern writers, and yet conveys great nuance about their characters through their thoughts and actions.
I've been keeping my eye out for fantasies that scratch that archetypal itch, that world-build without sacrificing magic to realism, and that give me a tale of adventure and daring, of quests and sacrifice and magic. I found it here. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel and taking another crack at some of her earlier books.