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I haz Sapphique!
Sep. 5th, 2008 09:21 amThe sequel to Catherine Fisher's Incarceron, which was The Times children's book of the year, landed on my doormat this week.
And if anything, I think it's better than Incarceron. The theme of both is really unusual for a children's book: the way we interpret (and misinterpret) the world we live in. In the Realm, outside, extreme modern technology is used to create the illusion of a pre-tech age of imagined arcadian bliss (for the rich), complete with picturesque hovels whose impoverished inhabitants are forbidden to glass the windows because it isn't compatible with the era they are meant not to have moved on from. Jared, near the end, muses on age and decay, generally the last remaining taboo in this genre: ".. a staircase he had climbed every day for years had become a treacherous obstacle, a deathtrap. This was how time transformed things, how your body betrayed you. This was what the Realm had tried to forget, in its deliberate elegant amnesia". In Incarceron, the vast (or tiny, depending whether you are inside or outside) prison, Rix the magician's act depends on allowing people to persuade themselves things are true:
"So it wasn't the real Glove? [...] But it burned him?"
"Well, he was right about the acid. As for not being able to take it off, he was perfectly able to. But I made him believe he could not. That is magic, Attia. To take a man's mind and twist it to believe the impossible".
( cut for major spoilers )
In short, a brilliant book which raises all sorts of fascinating questions this genre often doesn't. Now watch the Grauniad's review pages ignore it because it's fantasy. I don't think they have ever given her a review, despite the fact that she has been shortlisted for the Whitbread and Carnegie, translated into about 20 languages and both the Times and Telegraph regularly rave about her. Mole-eyed fools, the Guardianistas.
And if anything, I think it's better than Incarceron. The theme of both is really unusual for a children's book: the way we interpret (and misinterpret) the world we live in. In the Realm, outside, extreme modern technology is used to create the illusion of a pre-tech age of imagined arcadian bliss (for the rich), complete with picturesque hovels whose impoverished inhabitants are forbidden to glass the windows because it isn't compatible with the era they are meant not to have moved on from. Jared, near the end, muses on age and decay, generally the last remaining taboo in this genre: ".. a staircase he had climbed every day for years had become a treacherous obstacle, a deathtrap. This was how time transformed things, how your body betrayed you. This was what the Realm had tried to forget, in its deliberate elegant amnesia". In Incarceron, the vast (or tiny, depending whether you are inside or outside) prison, Rix the magician's act depends on allowing people to persuade themselves things are true:
"So it wasn't the real Glove? [...] But it burned him?"
"Well, he was right about the acid. As for not being able to take it off, he was perfectly able to. But I made him believe he could not. That is magic, Attia. To take a man's mind and twist it to believe the impossible".
( cut for major spoilers )
In short, a brilliant book which raises all sorts of fascinating questions this genre often doesn't. Now watch the Grauniad's review pages ignore it because it's fantasy. I don't think they have ever given her a review, despite the fact that she has been shortlisted for the Whitbread and Carnegie, translated into about 20 languages and both the Times and Telegraph regularly rave about her. Mole-eyed fools, the Guardianistas.
