AshMary Gentle
Gollancz, hardback, 1112 pages, £20
Published June 2000
ISBN 0575069007
Review by Mike Don (2000)
Book of the year? Possibly. In the awards frame? Could be a contender, provided the judges can decide on a genre pigeonhole. Advance publicity and cover blurb notwithstanding, Ash is not fantasy; in my book it’s entirely valid SF. I have to admit, it was a daunting prospect to be faced with; a near-1200 page tome, ostensibly heroic fantasy, about the exploits of a 15th century mercenary. But . . .
For a start, the story is structured using the old ‘found manuscript’ convention, ‘translated’ into contemporary prose. Ash and her medieval/early Renaissance merc troopers sound like a bunch of squaddies from Aldershot. Granted, this generates the occasional jolting anachronism, terms like ‘psychopath’, ‘tactical computer’, and ‘panic button’, but that’s a small price to pay.
On the other hand, there’s the impeccable attention to detail; a 15th century so authenic you can almost smell it, which is perhaps no more than you might expect from an author who just happens to be a recognized expert on medieval weapons and warfare.
As for the story, Ms Gentle sets a blistering pace. Ash is a compulsive, brawling yarn with vivid, larger than life characters. It takes a specialist talent to, apparently effortlessly, flesh out these principals as individuals in the context of a fast-moving plot.
Up to this point, comparisons might be made with Tim Powers’ The Drawing of the Dark, set in a similar era with a merc hero. However, Ash is marked out by the parallel contemporary plot, defined by emails and taped interviews, chronicling certain changes in reality as the manuscript is translated. This gives the novel a valid (in terms of physics) SF rationale as well as providing a finely judged alternate perspective. And the fact that Ash, and a surprising number of her company, are women might be taken as a feminist statement, but it isn’t rammed down the reader’s throat.
For me, a stay-up-all-night-and-finish-it job.