An elegant soiree Tuesday evening launched Laura Anne Gilman‘s The Shattered Vine, the third volume in her Vineart War trilogy. The location was the no-longer-so-new home of sf events in New York City, the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art. Appropriately for a fantasy series centered on wine-based magic, red and white wines were available, as well as fancy hors d’oeuvres and desserts (see the photo below, with fellow author Keith R.A. DeCandido tending bar). The small, but enthusiastic, crowd celebrating the book’s arrival included Gilman’s parents (see photo below left), and were treated to souvenir corkscrews (photo below). Representatives of a local Barnes & Noble were on hand to sell copies of the new book, along with newly arrived mass market copies of the first two in the series, Flesh and Fire and Weight of Stone. Gallery owner John Ordover and manager Kim Kindya joined in the celebrations, along with the book’s publicist and two of Gilman’s editors.
The Shattered Vine picks up where Weight of Stone left off. Indeed, Gilman has said that she considers the trilogy one long book published in three parts, and it certainly does read like one long story (so read the reviews of Flesh and Fire and Weight of Stone to catch up on the first two thirds of the story). In The Shattered Vine, it’s almost difficult to remember that the events, the entire War, started less than a year previously. Having sailed unknown seas, and made contact with unblooded vines, Vineart Jerzy returns home with his traveling companions, exiled Prince Kainam, would-be solitaire Mahault, and former trader apprentice Ao. Jerzy has discovered there’s a dark force out there, something he’s learned to identify by the taint of dark magic it imparts. Apparently, there’s a vineart somewhere beyond the Lands Vin, beyond Sin Washer’s commandments, who is out to destroy the world Jerzy knows by grafting fear and distrust onto the well-ordered society that has served for so long. He may not have access to all the magics at Jerzy’s disposal, but he’s unafraid to use them in much darker, more menacing ways.
This dark magic can travel far and wide, and even that is contrary to everything the vinearts know. Sin Washer separated the world into discrete pieces: the five separate legacies of magic-producing vines, or the various realms of man (political power, magic, and religion). But the dark vineart is combining them, and forcing his opponents to do the same.
And that’s the wall Jerzy has to break through: he has to break his in-bred commandment to remain apart from the world, tending only his own vineyards. Which is where his companions come into play. The foursome, at times, act as a chorus: four aspects of the one, much greater personality that will be required to succeed. At other times, however, Kainam, Mahault, and Ao are not so much equals as tutors, teaching Jerzy to be more than a simple vineart, adding their expertise to his own.
Is the key to winning the coming battle simple strength, superior knowledge, greater cunning, or something else? Can Jerzy save the lands he is tied to while still protecting them? And will Jerzy have to die after combining forces that ought not be combined? He’s not sure, he’s not sure of anything, except that darkness is coming, and he is the only one in his world who can fight it with any hope of success.
Gilman’s characters, even the supporting cast, are more three-dimensional than one expects in a novel. No character is purely good or completely evil; each has strong motivations for his actions, beyond the author’s need to move pieces about the board. And some of that three-dimensionality provides interesting surprises along the way, as earlier enemies logically turn into allies, and improbably abilities mesh to become necessary skills.
In retrospect, one thing surprises me about these books: slavery. Vinearts are bred from slaves; the magic recognizes potential vinearts amongst the slaves, and there are several parallels between the harsh conditions necessary for great wine and necessary for great vinearts. What surprised me, though, was how easily I accepted the slavery of this world as necessary and understandable. That’s a skill only the best writers have: the ability to make a reader accept as completely natural that which feels completely unnatural in real life.
Now that all three volumes are available, you can read the story of the Vineart War in one (long) sitting, the way it’s intended. You’ll find the journey well worth the trip, just crack open a bottle of wine to enjoy with the words.