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A review by manwithanagenda
The Dubious Hills by Pamela Dean
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The bookshelves of young fantasy are overcrowded, with increasingly fierce competition, but 'The Secret Country' deserves a far better place than it currently has. I remember when I last reread the trilogy, the name "The Dubious Hills" cracked me up. It was such a deliberate naming and went along with Dean's mythology so well. Little did I know she had written a companion book to the series about the place and that the two of them even have a sequel being crowd-funded and hopefully will be published soon.
'The Dubious Hills' takes some getting used to. Early on in the book Dean subjects the reader to a barrage of an inner-monologue that made little sense to me until later. The Dubious Hills area is under a centuries-old spell that was intended to prevent war. The results of the spell is to remove doubt and divide knowledge amongst the inhabitants. There is only one person who knows how to fix people or objects, one person who can teach, one person to identify plants, and so on. Nothing is certain to an individual unless it is their own Knowledge and everything else must be attributed to the individual who, after all, knows. There is magic, but unless you are the person whose Knowledge is magic your ability is lost sometime before you reach puberty and attain your Knowledge.
Arry is Physici, the individual who knows pain. At 14 she has been left in charge of her two younger siblings after the disappearance of her parents. Life is simple, requiring a great deal of bartering and trips to consult neighbors about everything. Tea is consumed, cats are abundant and if the situation isn't perfect it is at least peaceful. Complications arrive in the form of wolves who don't act the way they are Known to act. With some debate it falls on Arry to figure out the threat to their community and she comes to understand new forms of hurt along the way.
"That's all very good, Myles, but what the hell did you think of the book?"
I liked it. It was different and a well thought out 'if, then' kind of book. It makes me think of Diana Wynne Jones on Ritalin. English pastoral fantasy without the need for messy chaos. Arry and the other villagers walk back and forth across the hills, ask questions, give, lend and borrow necessities from one another and plant the crops, and lots of other details that could be seen as meaningless - but they're not! There's purpose to everything here, though, and The Dubious Hills circles around to an inevitable conclusion.
The Secret 'Trilogy'
Next: 'Going North' --- Coming soon?!
Previous: 'The Whim of the Dragon'
'The Dubious Hills' takes some getting used to. Early on in the book Dean subjects the reader to a barrage of an inner-monologue that made little sense to me until later. The Dubious Hills area is under a centuries-old spell that was intended to prevent war. The results of the spell is to remove doubt and divide knowledge amongst the inhabitants. There is only one person who knows how to fix people or objects, one person who can teach, one person to identify plants, and so on. Nothing is certain to an individual unless it is their own Knowledge and everything else must be attributed to the individual who, after all, knows. There is magic, but unless you are the person whose Knowledge is magic your ability is lost sometime before you reach puberty and attain your Knowledge.
Arry is Physici, the individual who knows pain. At 14 she has been left in charge of her two younger siblings after the disappearance of her parents. Life is simple, requiring a great deal of bartering and trips to consult neighbors about everything. Tea is consumed, cats are abundant and if the situation isn't perfect it is at least peaceful. Complications arrive in the form of wolves who don't act the way they are Known to act. With some debate it falls on Arry to figure out the threat to their community and she comes to understand new forms of hurt along the way.
"That's all very good, Myles, but what the hell did you think of the book?"
I liked it. It was different and a well thought out 'if, then' kind of book. It makes me think of Diana Wynne Jones on Ritalin. English pastoral fantasy without the need for messy chaos. Arry and the other villagers walk back and forth across the hills, ask questions, give, lend and borrow necessities from one another and plant the crops, and lots of other details that could be seen as meaningless - but they're not! There's purpose to everything here, though, and The Dubious Hills circles around to an inevitable conclusion.
The Secret 'Trilogy'
Next: 'Going North' --- Coming soon?!
Previous: 'The Whim of the Dragon'