Uprooted by Naomi Novik
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Recently I had the opportunity to see Naomi Novik speak on a panel at C2E2 (you could not escape the blue bags with her this book’s logo gorgeously emblazoned on them there), and that made me excited to read her new book UPROOTED. Honestly, I tried the Temeraire series and stopped after the first book–though that could have just been a case of “too many books, not enough time” syndrome. Resolved to give this very engaging author another shot after seeing her panel, I dove into Uprooted and was very glad to.
UPROOTED has the feel of an old story retold in a very good new way, one of those tales a bard would relate in front of a tavern fire surrounded by folks swaddled in fur. I guess it seems like it has roots in Russian or Polish mythology, with the character and place names. There are many twisty bits in this story–you may think our clumsy heroine is going to simply swoon at her unexpected mentor’s feet, but you’ll be wrong, to mention just one–and sometimes the action is so furious you might lose track of what’s happening, like the first time you see a summer blockbuster (am I the only one who likes to see movies more than once at the theater?). But this is good; seems like quite a few books nowadays are all action, no plot, whereas UPROOTED has a very firm thread to follow. The author upsets tropes without it seeming strange. The story doesn’t go where you expect, thankfully. And here, magic isn’t easy, and it has a terrific cost.
Every so often I found myself calling Mary Sue with the way magic seemed to work, but that could just be me being overly sensitive to such things (a hazard of reading too much fantasy and commentary of such?). Other than that, I have no complaints. The cover is beautiful and appropriate for the story. The characters have roots (pun intended) and don’t suddenly change their methods to suit the story. And the setting is at once bucolic and terrifying. Who doesn’t like a walk in the woods? “Into the woods, you have to grope, but that’s the way you learn to cope…”
Recommended for those folks who’ve had their fill of grimdark, want a fulfilling standalone tale, and some of what I heard another author call “pastoral fantasy,” which I think is a very good name for this type of story.
Received as a free digital ARC via Edelweiss and the publisher.