A review by bennysbooks
A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

adventurous dark reflective

• Strong character development? Yes

5.0

One of the best books I’ve read this year. But I think, judging from the average rating and reviews, it's a somewhat divisive book. It doesn’t adhere to the standards that have been set for fantasy in the past few decades, or the strictures of Western storytelling in general. That’s what I loved about it, but I think would make it difficult for some people to connect. There is certainly a level of going-with-the-flow required to enjoy A Stranger in Olondria, an acceptance that you are a stranger following a stranger in a strange land, which means that you won’t get every answer you might wish for, or feel like you can fully situate yourself in the text. I found the experience magical, mythical, like reading an ancient epic or a historical travelogue (without the racism). It can be a little messy at times, or uneven, more reminiscent of real life than a carefully plotted and structured text with airtight worldbuilding. So, if that’s what you’re hoping for from your fantasy – every answer you could ever possibly want or need – this might not be the book for you. But if you want to be swept up in a vivid world painted for you by Samatar’s lush prose, and unknowable as the distant past? This is your book. 

 

I would say that this most reminds me of: 

·  Ursula K. Le Guin in the stylistic elements of the writing and the way that Samatar explores the themes of the book through intricate worldbuilding as much as through plot

·  The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern in the transportive quality of the world, which is just divorced enough from reality to feel truly magical, and in the plot structure, which unfolds in layers and unfurls in spirals – stories within stories. 

The characters are flawed, realistic, and sometimes unintelligible in the way that real humans are – no matter how well depicted, how much you feel like you ‘know’ them, you can never fully predict how they will react in any given moment (the way your partner or your parents still surprise you after decades of learning their habits and quirks). I think it would take me another read to unpack the thematic elements of power and colonization, the tension between oral versus written storytelling, of grief and love, but I will say that Samatar prods more than she attempts to elucidate. 

 

Ultimately, this is a book for people who love exquisite, descriptive prose; who crave classic fantasy, but wish to be taken somewhere completely new; and, more than anything, those who live for stories.