The Swan Riders, by Erin Bow

I was so excited to get this one in my mailbox. I loved The Scorpion Rules, and when I was offered a chance to review the sequel I had to edit all the exclamation points out of my enthusiastic reply. Erin Bow is simply an astonishing author; and this book is possibly even better than the first one (except that's actually impossible—when I reviewed The Scorpion Rules I said I wasn't sure I would reread it because of how intense it is, but I reread it before reading The Swan Riders, and loved it all to pieces even more).

Note that I will do my bestest not to spoil Swan Riders at all in this review (you really don't want it to be spoiled, trust me!), but it's impossible to talk about it without spoiling Scorpion Rules, so if you haven't read the first book, go read it now before you even look at the blurb for Swan Riders!

And if you've read Scorpion, then all you really need is this pretend blurb from E.K. Johnston:

"All the emotional punches of THE SCORPION RULES, but with horses instead of goats."

Very true. But, okay, I'll rave a bit more about it. LAST CHANCE NOT TO BE SPOILED FOR THE FIRST BOOK. Ahem. The Swan Riders starts right after the end of Scorpion.

Awesome first line:

So. It is perhaps not everyone who asks to be murdered, gets their wish, and then, three days later, finds that their most immediate problem is that they cannot ride a horse. 

Greta is riding across the Saskatchewan prairie with Talis (in Rachel's body) and two Swan Rider escorts, Francis Xavier and Sri. New characters that you will come to love with as much intensity as you loved Xia, Thandi, the Abbot, etc.  (Just so you don't get disappointed: Xia doesn't get any screen time in this book, though she's still an important emotional presence. But Elián does. Oh, Elián!)

We find out about Swan Riders—how and why they were created, their powers and limitations, why they choose to become Swan Riders, their relationship with Talis and the other AIs—and Bow has lots of room here for her trademark heartwrenching moral and existential dilemmas. Oh, Francis Xavier!

We find out more about Talis—oh, Talis! Some of the best scenes in the book are interludes from his point of view, memories that pack in a lot of world-building and explanation while being equal parts funny, creepy and heartbreaking. We meet a few more AIs, and learn more about why they are going insane (and why Greta might, if she can't get a grip on herself).

And, of course, because this is what the best science fiction does, Bow uses the idea of artificial intelligence, and Greta, who is turning into one, to explore what it means to be human. "The who of me. The why of me." What love means. Why it matters.

I said this in my CM Magazine review (I try to sound dispassionate and scholarly in these reviews, but sometimes my raving voice leaks through): Bow’s writing is elegant and exact: she illuminates rather than explains the technological and metaphysical complexities that underpin the novel, always bringing every idea back to the impact it has on an individual.

He'd seen it over and over: how a single memory rose from the organic mind, and then from the datastore, and then (reinforced, and stronger) from the organics, and then (reinforced, and stronger) . . . it was two mirrors reflecting each other. It was feedback squealing through a microphone. A single moment building to an intensity beyond what any psyche could endure.

 How could there be no circuit breaker? How could there be no grace? 

Those sentences that punch you in the gut. Lots of them in this book. (Talis learned how to "make it personal" from Erin Bow, just saying.) Lots of tense, visceral moments; lots of rock-you-back-on-your-feet plot twists. And humour, still so much humour. Talis being snarky, Elián being Elián, horses (with names like NORAD and Gordon Lightfoot) being horses.

I keep trying to write sentences that explain how wonderful Bow is at exploring really cool philosophical ideas with gripping drama, and my sentences keep getting tied up in themselves (like this one). Bow is just a master of metaphor and symbol and character and pacing, and everything, really.

The short version? If you loved Scorpion, you won't be disappointed in Swan, so just go read it already!

I've got the smell of roasting ham wafting through my house, and it's actually a good food metaphor for Swan Riders: salty, savoury, a bit smoky, meaty, all kinds of complex goodness.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, by the way! I'm thankful that we have awesome writers like Erin Bow in our beautiful country!

The Scorpion Rules, by Erin Bow

I have several other reviews half-finished, but I made the mistake of going to the library, and The Scorpion Rules was on the New Books shelf. "Oh!" I said, "Everyone says this is so good! Maybe I should take it home so I can read it in a little while. You know, after I do all the other things I'm supposed to do."

So I took it home. Nothing else got done. I read it in two sittings (and would have stayed up all night if hubby hadn't intervened), and then I had to vacuum and wash the floors when I was done just so I could process. (So that's something productive, anyway!)

The Scorpion Rules is everything they* say it is. Compelling—I can vouch for that! Beautifully written. Intelligent. Heart-wrenching. Provoking.

Kudos to whoever wrote the blurb, because it's brilliant at saying everything important about the story without giving away anything. The premise is eye-catching: AIs have taken over the world and enforced peace by making world leaders give up their children as hostages. If countries go to war, their children are killed. I think how you feel about this book will depend on what you think is the most interesting thing about that premise.

For me, and apparently for Erin Bow, it's the psychology of the children who are raised together, knowing that at any time one child's parent may declare war on another's, and then both children must die. How do you wrap your head around that? How does it affect your relationships with each other, with your parents, with the AIs who are as parents to you and yet will kill you if so instructed?

It's seriously messed up, that's what it is, and so this is a book about seriously messed up kids who manage to retain their dignity, their sense of humour, their capacity to love—their humanity—despite the psychological (and often physical) torture they live through.

It's an intense book. It's also very funny at times. Best use of goats for comic relief in a YA dystopian novel. Wonderful, wonderful snarky amoral AI mastermind who loves 20thC movies.

Oh, the characters! So vivid, so realistic. Greta, the narrator, is barely holding it together, clinging to her ideals of duty and sacrifice. This is what a princess is; this is what a princess does. The others follow her lead because she's smart, she understands the implications of things, and yet she's blind to so much that matters. Elian—bleak, defiant, funny, unable to resign himself to his situation, Greta's opposite in so many ways. Graceful, compassionate Da-Xia. Prickly, protective Thandi. Silent Atta. So many different ways to respond to the horror they are living through. I'm not sure it's a book I'll reread, because it goes to some unpleasant places, but I would gladly spend more time with all these people.

The ending . . . I wasn't entirely happy with it, but it was satisfying. It did fit. And it could have been left as a standalone, but I'm very, very glad there's going to be a sequel.

I'm going to cross-post this on Goodreads because there are a few spoilery things I want to say, and I haven't figured out how to hide spoilers properly on blogger! So if you've read it, come over to Goodreads and tell me what you think.

I just discovered that Erin Bow is Canadian!! And she studied particle physics!! (And she writes great book reviews on Goodreads, but I am now getting far too distracted.) She's now my new favourite person I haven't met.

This makes my sixth Canadian book of the year (which started in July, so I'm not as behind as you think I am!). I'm well on my way to my goal of 13 for the 9th Annual Canadian Book Challenge. Check out John Mutford's blog The Book Mine Set for reviews of Canadian books of all persuasions.

*"They" being bloggers I follow and whose opinions I trust. Goodreads reviews are wildly divergent, and I think it's because not everyone gets this book.