020070211 18:21 • 
This wonderful tale of urban fantasy, elfpunk of high order, has been recommended to me by many people over the years, yet for one reason or another Emma Bull’s War For The Oaks didn’t make it onto my stack. The most recent recommendation came from Martin Spernau, under conditions which prompted an immediate reading. Am I ever thrilled this Faerie circle has finally appeared!
A musician’s tale, War For The Oaks is set in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1980s. On the surface, it’s the story of a human woman, Eddi McCandry, caught between rival Faerie courts at war with one another, a well-written romp through flash and myth set to a soundtrack of well-chosen period music and songs from Bull’s own band. On the surface, just enough authentic folklore is woven into the story to create an honest foundation for the rest. On the surface, it’s an infectious tale I found difficult to put down.
As everyone knows, however, Faerie is never what it seems on the surface.
Bull has written a tale about many things: individual power, self-reliance, ritual and customs, flexibility versus inflexibility and the strengths and weaknesses of both, honor and insult, the value of life, the fountain of creativity and, most of all, about the nature of magic itself.
Ever have the feeling you can cause something to happen simply by thinking passionately about it? War For The Oaks will make you realize that’s too simple a feeling. You’re much more powerful.
“Yes, you are. They’re your images. Or in some cases, sounds. When you’re wrapped up in making music, there’s more of you in it than you think.” Willy stretched his long legs out before him and leaned back. “You’re casting illusions.”
She looked at Carla. Eddi could no longer scoff at the possibility of magic—she’d promised the phouka she wouldn’t. But Carla was free to doubt assertions like Willy’s.
Carla only said, “She is?”
“Mmm. Just be glad she started with illusions. If her subconscious was dabbling in the elements, she could have set the Uptown on fire.”
“Rubbish,” the phouka said cheerfully. “With all due respect, of course. You know perfectly well that manipulating the elements is conjuring of a high intellectual order. It does not happen by accident.” Eddi suspected that the last sentence was for her benefit. She was grateful; it was nice to know that she wouldn’t burn down her apartment building in her sleep.
“So, how did I know how to do this?” Eddi asked, more or less of the phouka. “Have you been whispering in my ear?”
He shook his head irritably. “Were you taught to pull yourself upright, or to crawl?”
“It’s not the same. Those are normal developments.”
The phouka raised one eyebrow.
020060102 17:48 •
I was all of twelve when I first read the original five books in Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles Of Amber. I’d just joined the Science Fiction Book Club and the Boris Vallejo covers on their dual volume omnibus edition had me spellbound. Cloaked warrior in blue jeans, wielding a blade against giant feline demons set in one of Vallejo’s impossibly lush fantasy backdrops: sword and sorcery here I come!
This fateful decision, based purely on a child’s interpretation of a stereotypical pulp aesthetic, was one of the best I’ve made. I started reading and couldn’t put the story down. Even at twelve I quickly realized I’d received much more than I’d bargained for.
There is the one true realm, Amber, and endless images cast by this realm, called Shadow. Beyond Shadow itself is Chaos, from which all came and, if Chaos wins its hand, all will return. Everything imagined by one of the royal blood of Amber can be found in Shadow. Theirs is the power to traverse these endless worlds until enwrapping existence conforms to their every desire, conscious change by conscious change.
Zelazny spins a tale of intrigue, physical and mental mastery, dysfunctional family dynamics, inherent power and reality-warping par excellence. He’s a delicious, prismatic writer, always employing a few devious tricks in the telling to surprise farther in.
As a child I felt the world I saw around me, the world I was embedded in each and every day, was but one aspect of a vast, endless range of possible space and place. Now, in re-reading the books which shaped me, as the greater and smaller arcs of my life fly in trajectories much like the writings of Zelazny, Heinlein and Sturgeon, I find this feeling stronger every day.
Roger Zelazny himself puts in a cameo as prison guard. He’s encountered by the central character, Corwin, in the dungeons deep beneath the palace. Corwin was once imprisoned here long-term, by a brother who had claimed the throne. Roger explains his enjoyment of dungeon duty to Corwin:
“Good evening, Lord Corwin,” said the lean, cadaverous figure who rested against a storage rack, smoking his pipe, grinning around it.
“Good evening, Roger. How are things in the nether world?”
“A rat, a bat, a spider. Nothing much else astir. Peaceful.”
“You enjoy this duty?”
He nodded.
“I am writing a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity. I work on those parts down here.”
“Fitting, fitting,” I said. “I’ll be needing a lantern.”
He took one from the rack, brought it to flame from his candle.
“Will it have a happy ending?” I inquired.
He shrugged.
“I’ll be happy.”
“I mean, does good triumph and hero bed heroine? Or do you kill everybody off?”
“That’s hardly fair,” he said.
“Never mind. Maybe I’ll read it one day.”
“Maybe,” he said.
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