Friday Reads: Among Others

It’s taken me a long time to get to Among Others by Jo Walton. It’s being published this month by Corsair in the UK, but it was originally published in the US almost a year ago by Tor. At the time of writing it had won the Nebula, Hugo and British Fantasy Award for best novel, and was nominated for best novel at the World Fantasy Awards in Toronto. That’s an impressive line-up in anyone’s book.

And it’s an impressive book. Written as a diary, we follow Morwenna – survivor of a nasty car accident which killed her sister, and of a difficult upbringing – in her own words as she embarks on a complete upheaval. A new school, new people, new world in which she’s cut off from her family and roots. There’s a sense of isolation from the beginning, and a tremendous sense of independence, as Mori struggles to make herself comfortable in her new surroundings. It helps that she’s smart, and although her injury excludes her from the school’s greatest obsession – sports – it gives her time to indulge her greatest pleasure: science fiction.

There is a lot here to connect with, and to admire. Mori believes she can do magic, and that magic is a subtle and slippery thing which is sufficiently well evoked that we never know if it’s true or not. Her promptness to examine her responsibilities and the wisdom of using her power is in keeping with the pragmatism and intellect of her character, although it can make the diary entries a little heavy going at times. It is her use of magic that interested me the most, though: in one instance for protection from her mother and her old life; in another specifically to help her find friends in her new life. To adapt to being among others.

And it is a novel of adaptation. Mori may use her magic to try to shape the world around her and make it more to her liking, but what we see, in her own words, is how she is changing in response to her surroundings . . . and a slow opening up to the people and world she is surrounded by. In dealing with grief, isolation, bullying, and growing up as a geek, Among Others is smart, delicately written and quite beautifully done. It is certainly a novel by an exceptional author.

There are elements I didn’t love. Mori’s aloofness can carry with it a sense of superiority over others, and her obsession with science fiction made me feel, at times, that I was reading a reading list rather than a novel (reading a book about reading has the potential to be as frustrating as watching a film about film making). The diary entry format, making her musings about authors and novels a monologue rather than a dialogue, perhaps didn’t help – and while her reading is a part of her characterisation, I did wonder if it was incidental to the core story. But these are quibbles in the face of a sophisticated piece of storytelling which has clearly spoken to readers and award juries alike, and been rewarded for its evocation of individuality, isolation and sense not necessarily of being among others, but of being somehow different to them.