Rowan Tree and Red Thread

This is a new fantasy first novel by young Cambridge grad Steph Swainston. She builds an interesting world of mortals and immortals, beset by a plague of Insect invaders reminiscent of Heinlein's "bugs." The narrator and central protagonist, a drug-addicted Immortal, stumbles through the various crises, as the Immortals begin to fight amongst themselves, while the Insect overwhelm the mortal lands in a headlong rush.

The characters are good, well-drawn and convincing, though the impact of immortality is only lightly touched on. The writing is generally good, with some sudden jarring elements like modernisms that stuck out, and an irritating sliding scale that made distances seem to grow and shrink throughout the book.

I had a problem with the peculiar pacing, as it seemed to take an awfully long time to get to the meat of the Insect problem, which we're set up to view as the central plot, and then a pretty quick resolution once Comet, the narrator, kicks his drug habit in an unconvincingly speedy withdrawal. The characters were interesting enough to pull me through nonetheless, and Swainston managed to balance the various changes of scene between times and worlds well.

Despite any reservations, I loved the book, as the descriptions of both worlds visited by Comet are compelling, and the politics of the Immortals' Circle are convincingly familiar. I'd be keen to see Swainston write more, and get a firmer grip on her voice. The Year of Our War is a good start, but not the miraculous work that the cover quotes would have you believe.

Thanks to nhw for his earlier review which sparked my interest so that I picked up a copy when I saw it in Dublin recently.