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Firethorn by Sarah Micklem
01/11/2005 . Source: Jennifer Howell 
pub: Bantam Spectra. 383 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.00 (US), $21.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-38340-X. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.bantamdell.com and www.firethorn.info
The plot for Sarah Micklem's 'Firethorn' is somewhat deceptive. In trying to describe it, it almost ends up sounding like a medieval fantasy romance (the kind that usually have the word 'Arthurian' lurking somewhere on the back cover. Ick!). Fortunately, all it takes is turning the first page to be greeted by a delicious extract from an Adrienne Rich poem (about the pitfalls of expecting fantastic archetypes not to be real people) and it plunges straight into the most elegantly written and genuinely extraordinary fantasy novels I've ever read. Ever!
Firethorn, the narrator, starts out as Luck, a 'mudfolk' orphan with unusually red hair serving an ageing noblewoman, the Dame, in a land where the division between high and lowborn is literally attributed to the gods. Too restless to live her fate as a drudge and too proud to accept the inevitable abuse that accompanies it after the Dame's death, Luck runs. A year in the mountains spent starving to death makes her desperate enough to eat the poisonous berries of the firethorn tree but instead of dying, she has a revelation that may well include a god-granted gift.
Emerging from the forest, calling herself Firethorn, she tries to go back to civilisation, knowing she can never quite fit. In the Upside-Down Days (ten days when the high and lowborn trade places) she meets Sire Galan, a visiting lord who takes her fancy. When he marches off to war and suggests she tag along as his 'sheath' (Micklem's invented and pretty self-explanatory term), she jumps at the chance just to get away. But life as a camp follower waiting for war may well be something that not even Firethorn can survive...
There's a hint of Tanith Lee's 'A Heroine Of The World' in the plot (not one of her best-known, but an old favourite of mine), but 'Firethorn' trumps Lee with a far more engaging protagonist. It also reminded me slightly of Jacqueline Carey's 'Kushiel' trilogy at times, in its themes and gorgeous use of language but 'Firethorn' always harks back to something more basic, lacking any of the extravagant trappings. It could even be Mary Gentle's 'Ash: A Secret History' minus all the metaphysics. Its power lies in the fact that its central character is flawed and knows it, but then, so is everyone else around her.
The 'great romance' at its centre is, if anything, anti-romantic. Quite realistically, Galan is already in an arranged marriage and has a child. Firethorn is in a precarious position, dependent on his goodwill to survive, but too proud to accept him betraying her in any way. Galan seems curiously addicted to her, for all the difficulty it causes. Both characters are, as Micklem puts it, 'lightening rods for trouble.'
Around and about this is Micklem's wonderfully intricate world. Not the kind you get a 10 page prologue for detailing the creation of all the gods, thankfully. There's an element of getting thrown in at the deep end, but if you know anything at all about comparative mythology and mythic archetypes, it's fascinating to see how many cultures she's cherry-picked from. Though the word is never mentioned, Micklem has said she was trying to make Firethorn a shaman: she can far-see, influence things at a distance and possibly cast - attempting that only compounds her mistakes. It's the uncertainty that ties the supernatural elements so well into a world where nothing is sweetness and light.
In some ways, it feels like reading a historical novel. There's obviously a vast amount of historical and other research having gone into this. According to the author's note, she read 'army survival manuals, oral histories, herbals and travellers' tales' and these are precisely the kinds of things that fantasy writers should be drawing on, because pseudo-medieval European fantasyland post-Tolkien has been done to death as lazy shorthand for world-building for far too long already. It's especially nice to see the concept of misrule ('Upside Down Days' here) play a part. Dating back to Roman times, it's a truly medieval custom finally outlawed in the 16th century (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Misrule ). It's not used nearly enough in fantasy and it suits Micklem's themes and characters perfectly.
There's a darkness here that veers beyond the shock tactics of gore, sex and violence. Although there's plenty of all three, hardly surprising considering it's mainly set in an army camp. There's a disturbing trend growing these days for rape to be used as a rather lazy attempt at female character development these days in this genre and I thought this was one particular aspect that Micklem handled particularly well. Yes, a rape does drive her protagonist's actions at the beginning, but it's also a turning point in allowing Firethorn to take control of her own life; to react against the status quo that led her to that place. It's written starkly and with as little melodrama as possible and it works.
Like Jacqueline Carey's 'Kushiel' trilogy, this is going to be a book that some people love and some are absolutely going to hate: either the character voice speaks to you or it doesn't. There's not going to be much in it for those who like the tame Arthurian medieval fantasies this appears to be at first glance because it blows the whole cosy cliché away. It's a romance that never mentions the word 'love' because there's no place for it to be said aloud and a fantasy where the magic is unsure and the gods make their moves just out of sight.
It's also something I'm going to re-read on a regular basis because it manages that rare, rare quality of using gorgeous language to tell a powerful story and you can't ask for more than that in any genre.
Jennifer Howell
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