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Nov. 22nd, 2011 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opusculasedferaI just finished Margaret Ball's No Earthly Sunne, which is an excellent book in itself, but is also fascinating for the way it slots right into certain sub-genres of fantasy novels. It's not exactly referring to other books, but it feels like it's part of a literary conversation in a way that amuses me.
So the plot is, essentially your taken-by-the-fairies-rescued-by-lover narrative, with the stolen gent being an Elizabethan nobleman by the name of Kit Arundel and the rescuer Ellen, a contemporary (well, 1990s) computer programmer who is the reincarnation of his Elizabethan lover, Eleanor. Ellen is having what she thinks is a nervous breakdown, but turns out to be her remembering her past life as Eleanor. She is subtly encouraged by the fairies to perform music that has the power to bring Kit back, which turns out to be part of a plan to combine the fairy world and ours, to the detriment of both. She works out that this will actually fuck the fairies up too and gets him back without destroying the world in the process.
All of this is quite well-done. The difficulties of having an Elizabethan boyfriend are fairly well dealt with; you really get the impression that Ball is aware that the guy who would make an excellent historical romance hero (Kit is impressed by Eleanor's intelligence and wants to marry her because he is so pleased to have someone to discuss math with) is going to be a shitty boyfriend by modern standards as he respects her mind, but is still pretty convinced of his legitimate authority over her and, while it seems clear that Ellen is going to be able to change his habits, this is going to be a bit of a process. It's presented as funny, but also something that will actually be a bit of a problem. Eleanor is also smart, but not weirdly modern. She's still religious, she's not apprehensive about Kit (who her brother thinks she should flirt with) because she doesn't want to get married, but because she is aware of their relative social positions and is worried he doesn't actually have marriage in mind. The Elizabethan dialect neither sounds over the top or excessively modern and the period details are pretty good. I'm sure someone who studies the Tudors would be pickier than I am, but I know something about medieval history and nothing really threw me out of the story. Ellen isn't just a reincarnation, she has her own life as a modern woman and this is presented as being equally important, including her female friends who get to be seriously concerned about her apparent breakdowns. So it is a good example of the modern fairy-rescuing story.
It's also amusingly just not quite part of that sub-genre of urban fantasy that I call defeating-the-fairies-with-rock-music (the examples that spring first to mind are Gail Baudino's Gossamer Axe and Emma Bull's War with the Oaks.) It's about music and fairies, but the music that has power over them is strictly Elizabethan and modernised arrangements of it are explicitly non-functional (though this is mostly attributed to the original having been written by Kit with specific magical intent that isn't replicated by the later arrangers). And the fairies aren't in the end overwhelmed by the music, but by Ellen's computer logic. So it's just close enough that it looks like it should fit and then it doesn't quite.
On the other hand, it definitely fits into that 90s genre of computer programmer heroines who have to deal with magic. Which I usually find so very charming. Barbara Hambly is my favourite, but I feel like I've read a lot of books like this and it just makes me so happy. Even if the computer programming is endearingly 90s so Ellen and her colleagues are making these big breakthroughs in AI that are endearingly old now as it's pretty much right before they realise that it's actually all more complicated. But I do love smart women who we get to see being smart and taken seriously for their smarts. No Earthly Sunne isn't a timeless masterpiece, but it's a very pleasant read and if you like any of these related genres then you might well be interested.
So the plot is, essentially your taken-by-the-fairies-rescued-by-lover narrative, with the stolen gent being an Elizabethan nobleman by the name of Kit Arundel and the rescuer Ellen, a contemporary (well, 1990s) computer programmer who is the reincarnation of his Elizabethan lover, Eleanor. Ellen is having what she thinks is a nervous breakdown, but turns out to be her remembering her past life as Eleanor. She is subtly encouraged by the fairies to perform music that has the power to bring Kit back, which turns out to be part of a plan to combine the fairy world and ours, to the detriment of both. She works out that this will actually fuck the fairies up too and gets him back without destroying the world in the process.
All of this is quite well-done. The difficulties of having an Elizabethan boyfriend are fairly well dealt with; you really get the impression that Ball is aware that the guy who would make an excellent historical romance hero (Kit is impressed by Eleanor's intelligence and wants to marry her because he is so pleased to have someone to discuss math with) is going to be a shitty boyfriend by modern standards as he respects her mind, but is still pretty convinced of his legitimate authority over her and, while it seems clear that Ellen is going to be able to change his habits, this is going to be a bit of a process. It's presented as funny, but also something that will actually be a bit of a problem. Eleanor is also smart, but not weirdly modern. She's still religious, she's not apprehensive about Kit (who her brother thinks she should flirt with) because she doesn't want to get married, but because she is aware of their relative social positions and is worried he doesn't actually have marriage in mind. The Elizabethan dialect neither sounds over the top or excessively modern and the period details are pretty good. I'm sure someone who studies the Tudors would be pickier than I am, but I know something about medieval history and nothing really threw me out of the story. Ellen isn't just a reincarnation, she has her own life as a modern woman and this is presented as being equally important, including her female friends who get to be seriously concerned about her apparent breakdowns. So it is a good example of the modern fairy-rescuing story.
It's also amusingly just not quite part of that sub-genre of urban fantasy that I call defeating-the-fairies-with-rock-music (the examples that spring first to mind are Gail Baudino's Gossamer Axe and Emma Bull's War with the Oaks.) It's about music and fairies, but the music that has power over them is strictly Elizabethan and modernised arrangements of it are explicitly non-functional (though this is mostly attributed to the original having been written by Kit with specific magical intent that isn't replicated by the later arrangers). And the fairies aren't in the end overwhelmed by the music, but by Ellen's computer logic. So it's just close enough that it looks like it should fit and then it doesn't quite.
On the other hand, it definitely fits into that 90s genre of computer programmer heroines who have to deal with magic. Which I usually find so very charming. Barbara Hambly is my favourite, but I feel like I've read a lot of books like this and it just makes me so happy. Even if the computer programming is endearingly 90s so Ellen and her colleagues are making these big breakthroughs in AI that are endearingly old now as it's pretty much right before they realise that it's actually all more complicated. But I do love smart women who we get to see being smart and taken seriously for their smarts. No Earthly Sunne isn't a timeless masterpiece, but it's a very pleasant read and if you like any of these related genres then you might well be interested.
