attackfish

Because of

sarahtales ' generosity, I have a UK copy of

rj_anderson 's Knife (to be released in the US and Canada on April 28, 2009 under the title Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter because Harper Collins was worried readers would think it was a mystery or thriller with no faeries at all... Mind, most of us would get it because there's a girl with wings on the front) about Bryony, a young faery who lives in the Oak in the back yard of the House. The faeries of the Oak, magicless after a great catastrophe only barely within living memory are terrified of humans, so when Bryony, the only child they have, escapes from the Oak, if only for a few minutes and sees a human boy from the House, and worse, he sees her, She's dragged back into the Oak. Even after she's chosen to become the Queen's Hunter, with the freedom to leave the Oak to bring home meat and chase away predators like crows and foxes, she doesn't think she'll meet the boy again, much less that he'd be so interesting.

After Bryony breaks into the House and makes off with the blade of a letter opener, she renames herself Knife, known as the best hunter the Oak has ever had. With her metal knife, much better than the bone and flint ones she could make before, she can go into combat against a crow and win. I love Knife, and not just because she's small and feisty, and therefor a kindred spirit. Anderson's descriptions of Knife and the other faeries' attitudes as tiny smart prey animals, rightfully afraid of crows, foxes, cats, and humans, made me think of Knife like a stallion, protecting a herd by fighting off predators, but still fundamentally prey. The Oak is like a beehive, a safe place to retreat to, and like a beehive, there aren't any boy faeries, because faeries reproduce by laying a single egg when they die. The tiny delicate faeries of the Oak have almost entirely forgotten how to love. They bargain for everything, and never do anything for anyone else just because they like that person. And they absolutely never say "thank you". Yet in their cold world, the faeries are dying off.

Not only does Anderson develop a charming, sad, and attractive world for her faeries, she lets Knife, fascinated by humans, fall in love with a human boy, but not just any human boy, a big, strong, disabled one. As a disabled reader, this is what attracted me to the book first. Usually on the rare occasion disabled characters are portrayed, we never get to be romantic leads (except for the occasional Victorian style tragic female whose disability is used to emphasize her frailty), but Anderson writes Paul, a credible complex romantic lead struggling with his new disability, resentful and unhappy, and finally sinking into despair, before with the help of his new friend Knife, climbing back out again. When he and Knife fall in love, it feels natural and right to me as a reader.

Paul, like the faeries of the Oak is decaying with his unwillingness to let others in, but from the very beginning, Knife forces her way in.

'Why shouldn't I try to escape? You put me in a box!' She folded her arms and added resentfully, 'I don't understand why you won't just let me go.'

'Are you serious? Do you have any idea what it means for a human being to find a real, live faery?'

'About the same as it means for a faery to find a real, live human being, I suppose,' said Knife tartly. 'Except I don't have a box big enough to put you-'

Although all of the faeries are female and this is one of the few books that fails to meet the reverse of the Bechdel test, it's not hostile to male readers at all, at least no more than books and movies with very few female characters are hostile to female readers and watchers, which is really very cool of it.

The one thing about Knife that put a very bad taste in my mouth was the portrayal of Amaryllis, and not just because every time I read her name I pictured the little girl from The Music Man. The queen of the faeries might be well meaning, but her deception and rigidity, her fondness for emotional punishments, as well as her willingness to test her subjects by forcing them to make mephistophelean choices all for their own good made me feel icky. I could tell that Anderson was trying to portray her as at least somewhat sympathetic, but I found myself thinking that if she treated me the way she treated Knife and the rest, I'd have run away at least. Admittedly she wasn't the main character, and I probably wasn't supposed to like her, so I enjoyed Knife despite her.

Anderson's tiny, arboreal faeries and rural setting give her book a welcoming quality. Her faeries aren't scary, and Knife isn't the unsettling mix of horror and fantasy that defines most Urban Fantasy. It's comforting book, the kind that feels like sinking into a hot bath, and it's suspenseful and thrilling without ever relying on creep. I expect to reread it many times, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy, and to any family that reads a book together in the evenings.