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A review by lizshayne
All Good Things by Emma Newman
5.0
(My first review got eaten by my wifi and now I'm sad.)
This series. In some ways, this review is for the entire thing and for Newman totally sticking the landing and successfully pulling everything together. I was about 1/5 of the way through and watching her unravel ends that had already seemed tidied up and wondering how she was going to finish it all in one book, but she did it, weaving everything in and getting it off the needles before it grew too big. (Here endeth the knitting analogy.) I really enjoyed it; it's exactly the sort of urban fantasy I like reading: clever, British, and feminist.
But I have to talk about Will. Because he really is the hardest character to get right and Newman just does it effortlessly. The question is not whether he is the villain of the story (or at least a villain. Everyone's the villain at some point) but whether he can successfully sell us as readers on his vision of reality. Being inside his head is disorienting because Newman shows us how his justifications work and his remorse and all the good things he does. She shows us how evil happens at the hands of those who don't see themselves as evil and who deeply regret it. It's up to us--and to Cathy, who has been Will's victim one too many times--to see through him and to recognize how well meaning people who would never see themselves as evil still do horrible things. The book asks us to think about how we deal with people who mean well and do ill, who lack evil intentions, but create evil consequences. And it answers, rather brilliantly, destroy the power structures that let them perpetuate their evil. It's not about punishing Will; it's about making sure no one will ever be in his position again.
There's a reason that I consider The Split Worlds to be paradigmatic of a story trend I've seen recently. I've been watching the growth of what I think of as Social Justice Speculative Fiction - that is SF where the concerns of the plot are deeply imbricated in issues of social justice. (I cannot believe I have to add this disclaimer, but) This is not derogatory; on the contrary, it's an example of SF doing what it does best, speculating. As speculative fiction, it either predicts or mythologizes elements of the world we inhabit in order to better understand the way that the world works. Fantasy, in particular, is no longer merely the genre of the mythic past that idealizes The Return of the King, but equally the genre of the mythic present via defamiliarization, holding the fun house mirror up to life to reexamine what we thought we knew about war and colonization and feminism and queer representation. It's a brilliant achievement and (speaking of disclaimers I shouldn't need) makes for better crafted narratives with more polished prose than the tired rehash of the Hero's Journey. Newman's work fits into this form neatly and for that I love it. But Newman's social justice fantasy is also fundamentally the fantasy that magic can be a force for social justice. Spoilers for both Split Worlds and Wonder Woman ahead.Newman links the splitting of her worlds with climate change, much like Wonder Woman links humankind's propensity to war with the God Ares. And Diana's confrontation with Remus Lupin Ares serves partly to give her an enemy in her weight class and partly to undermine the idea that magical force fighting for the side of good is enough to fix things. Not entirely; Diana is still a SJW of the highest order and the movie is still something of a fantasy about having the magical power to fix things, but it does complicate that vision significantly. Newman mostly plays it straight: in order to fix climate change, you need to bring back the Fae and they will balance the elemental court. Not perfectly, but they make it possible. And it works in the story, but it does leave me wishing to set Lord Poppy on everyone in power not currently working to fix things...
This series. In some ways, this review is for the entire thing and for Newman totally sticking the landing and successfully pulling everything together. I was about 1/5 of the way through and watching her unravel ends that had already seemed tidied up and wondering how she was going to finish it all in one book, but she did it, weaving everything in and getting it off the needles before it grew too big. (Here endeth the knitting analogy.) I really enjoyed it; it's exactly the sort of urban fantasy I like reading: clever, British, and feminist.
But I have to talk about Will. Because he really is the hardest character to get right and Newman just does it effortlessly. The question is not whether he is the villain of the story (or at least a villain. Everyone's the villain at some point) but whether he can successfully sell us as readers on his vision of reality. Being inside his head is disorienting because Newman shows us how his justifications work and his remorse and all the good things he does. She shows us how evil happens at the hands of those who don't see themselves as evil and who deeply regret it. It's up to us--and to Cathy, who has been Will's victim one too many times--to see through him and to recognize how well meaning people who would never see themselves as evil still do horrible things. The book asks us to think about how we deal with people who mean well and do ill, who lack evil intentions, but create evil consequences. And it answers, rather brilliantly, destroy the power structures that let them perpetuate their evil. It's not about punishing Will; it's about making sure no one will ever be in his position again.
There's a reason that I consider The Split Worlds to be paradigmatic of a story trend I've seen recently. I've been watching the growth of what I think of as Social Justice Speculative Fiction - that is SF where the concerns of the plot are deeply imbricated in issues of social justice. (I cannot believe I have to add this disclaimer, but) This is not derogatory; on the contrary, it's an example of SF doing what it does best, speculating. As speculative fiction, it either predicts or mythologizes elements of the world we inhabit in order to better understand the way that the world works. Fantasy, in particular, is no longer merely the genre of the mythic past that idealizes The Return of the King, but equally the genre of the mythic present via defamiliarization, holding the fun house mirror up to life to reexamine what we thought we knew about war and colonization and feminism and queer representation. It's a brilliant achievement and (speaking of disclaimers I shouldn't need) makes for better crafted narratives with more polished prose than the tired rehash of the Hero's Journey. Newman's work fits into this form neatly and for that I love it. But Newman's social justice fantasy is also fundamentally the fantasy that magic can be a force for social justice. Spoilers for both Split Worlds and Wonder Woman ahead.