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A review by mostlyshanti
Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman
4.0
The cover of Silver on the Road drew me primarily because it was so compelling. The way it looked, I wondered if it would be at all similar to Walk On Earth A Stranger; while the narratives bear some resemblance (evil and morally ambiguous powerful men; young girls discovering themselves on the road), it does seem purely coincidental . But the John Jude Palancar illustration is utterly breathtaking, and definitely was the main reason I picked up this book.
Silver on the Road is a narrative that doesn’t spend excessive time explaining itself. I wouldn’t have minded earlier information about how much power the Devil had, but the story proceeds apace so that’s okay. I also didn’t love the ending? It didn’t seem to lead naturally from the content of the plot, which barely touched on religion or the Spanish. I also found Isabel’s naïvety a bit much sometimes. She was so confused and so barely in control of whatever powers she’d been granted that the story lacked a certain clarity at times.
That said, the concept of this world was totally brilliant. I’m not a hundred percent on American history, and Silver on the Road is mercifully undated, but Gilman is able to utilize the glamour of the west while also complicating it, which is quite the feat. Perhaps there is a monster of disease and sudden death and abandoned towns—but the more subtle implication is that these things happened without the magic.
The concept of control is a key on in Silver on the Road. Isabel has taken control of her fate—by handing it to someone else. The implication of that are ones that she must continue to wrestle with, and I hope that that continues through the series. The idea of the Devil may have needed more probing, but the execution is still fabulous. I also loved the character of Gabriel.
Laura Anne Gilman has created a world which fits together well, although it is fairly unexplained and obscure. There is something deeply compelling about The West as a cultural concept: an ideological touchstone, a producer and enhancer of myth. It is Gilman’s ability to take advantage of this which is her real strength. As her tale of horses and monsters, girls and discovery, story above all else, unfolds, the West again becomes a place of more possibility than fallibility.
Silver on the Road is a narrative that doesn’t spend excessive time explaining itself. I wouldn’t have minded earlier information about how much power the Devil had, but the story proceeds apace so that’s okay. I also didn’t love the ending? It didn’t seem to lead naturally from the content of the plot, which barely touched on religion or the Spanish. I also found Isabel’s naïvety a bit much sometimes. She was so confused and so barely in control of whatever powers she’d been granted that the story lacked a certain clarity at times.
That said, the concept of this world was totally brilliant. I’m not a hundred percent on American history, and Silver on the Road is mercifully undated, but Gilman is able to utilize the glamour of the west while also complicating it, which is quite the feat. Perhaps there is a monster of disease and sudden death and abandoned towns—but the more subtle implication is that these things happened without the magic.
The concept of control is a key on in Silver on the Road. Isabel has taken control of her fate—by handing it to someone else. The implication of that are ones that she must continue to wrestle with, and I hope that that continues through the series. The idea of the Devil may have needed more probing, but the execution is still fabulous. I also loved the character of Gabriel.
Laura Anne Gilman has created a world which fits together well, although it is fairly unexplained and obscure. There is something deeply compelling about The West as a cultural concept: an ideological touchstone, a producer and enhancer of myth. It is Gilman’s ability to take advantage of this which is her real strength. As her tale of horses and monsters, girls and discovery, story above all else, unfolds, the West again becomes a place of more possibility than fallibility.