Re-read to prepare for reading book 5 in this series. Love this book. Wish I could fly... ( )

A flying man arrives in a town, buys a newspaper and turns to read about the King's most recent press conference. This is certainly not your usual fantasy novel. Jant, the flying man referred to, is one of the Circle of Immortals, a cadre of some fifty individuals, each with a skill or special ability that the equally immortal Emperor keeps by him to run the Fourlands in the absence of an (unspecified) god who created the world and then went away. The Immortals are not born immortal; immortality is bestowed upon them when they join the Circle; it can be taken away from them if any one of them upsets the Emperor, and the Immortals are not invulnerable.

Jant is the Emperor's Messenger, and he has a Circle name, Comet. All the Immortals have their Circle name; these names serve as an official identity and also as a job title. Although one of the races of the Fourlands, the Awia, have vestigial wings, hollow bones and fast metabolisms that suggest that they ought to be able to fly, only Jant actually can. He also has a drug problem, which is described in some graphic detail. But this is not gratuitous awfulness; a heavy dose of his drug of choice can propel him into another world, which is weird, sometimes horribly surreal, but which has a physical reality of its own and which comes to play an important part in the events of the novel.

The Fourlands are besieged by large, beetle-like Insects, against whom the Circle have waged war seemingly without end.. As the novel opens, Insect attacks are growing in intensity and frequency and no-one knows why. Things get complicated when various members of the Circle begin falling out with each other - after all, after between 500 and 1000 years of working together, you might just begin to detest the sight of your colleagues. Jant finds himself at the centre of these disputes and of the war, all the time trying to be a fair go-between for the Emperor, various mortal monarchs and the other members of the Circle. No wonder he took to drugs, you might think.

Jant is far from likeable; but he is a complex character, and not without wit. But he is definitely flawed, and those who like to empathise with their main protagonists will probably react against Jant, his excesses and his addictions.

The world-building is interesting. Fourlands is at tines a modern society; people wear T-shirts, run marathons, measure distances using the metric system, tell the time with a twenty-four hour clock and have a seven-day week that starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. Technology is roughly late Georgian/early Victorian level; there is industry and steelworks and (water-powered) trams and sticky tape; and although there are some things that are inexplicable, and others that are just not explained, there is no highly overt magic as such. I've seen this described as a parallel reality; I tend to visualise this sort of thing as suggesting some sort of far future, lost colony sort of setting, because so many of these things are cultural indicators that a wholly different and separate culture would not have. But I enjoyed it immensely, possibly because of all these contemporary vibes elbowing their way in.

The language is also contemporary; and what with the scenes of graphic drug abuse and some equally graphic sex of dubious consensuality, some readers will not take kindly to this book. But it is no identikit fantasy. The plot gets a bit bogged down in the middle as Jant uncovers the extent and effect of the bickering within the Circle, but once a few heads get knocked together, things move on in interesting ways. Combat is described in some degree of detail, but without gratuitousness. The Insects are truly implacable and their motives unknowable.

To sum up: an unusual fantasy unlike any that you may have read before. There is enough to intrigue if the protagonist's shortcomings don't actually repel you. ( )

This book came highly recommended to me by a friend, AND it had a blurb from China Mieville on the front cover. So I fully expected to love it.
But - I just couldn't get into it.
I suspect that the aspects of the book that many readers interpreted as 'highly original' and 'weird' I just saw as poorly delineated usual fantasy.
It took a long time to be told who the characters are, where they are, what's going on, what their motivations are... and I didn't really see a point, narrative-wise, to be so cagey about everything. As a reader, it just made me feel distanced from the story.

Basically, Jant is a half-breed immortal, one of an elite military cadre, and the only individual who can fly, in a world that is desperately battling a plaque of giant insects. (That is, when they're not engaging in petty intrigue and bickering.) He's also a drug addict, which everyone around him regard as a failing - but it may be that the place his consciousness goes when he seems to be in a drug hallucination is an actual alternate world - and this may hold the key to defeating the bugs.

I thought that the world and the story had a lot of potential, but it felt like a first novel to me. (I also really disliked the drug-hallucination world, and its dependence on bad puns to distinguish it from the 'regular' world.) And apparently, the author has now given up on writing, with some bitter, grumpy public announcements of such... so I don't think I'll continue with the series. (It is a 4-book series, and this one ends at a cliffhanger point.) ( )

The premise seemed quite good, and I'm sure that's what pulled me toward it in the first place, but the execution terrible. I couldn't really keep up with the plot and found all the characters to be two-dimensional and quite difficult to get to know. They were just names on a page. I also didn't like the odd, blasè way the protagonist's drug addiction was handled. He took drugs, spaced out for about five minutes and then was absolutely fine and could have conversations straight after? The drug abuse was probably the most interesting aspect of it: especially since it was in first person narrative, but the author clearly has no idea what drugs actually do to you. ( )

The Year of Our War is the first novel by Steph Swainston and the first book in the Fourlands Series.

Plot:
The Fourlands are at war with the (man-sized) Insects that threaten to overrun the entire kingdom. King Dunlin leads the attacks, supported and advised by the Emperor and his group of 50 Immortals, all the best in their respective fields. One of said Immortals is Jant, the messenger – a position he has because his father was Awian and his mother Rhydanne, which gives him wings and a light enough frame to actually fly, the only person to be able to. But by now, it is the only reason he still has the position as he is also incredibly self-centered and addicted to the drug cat and the Shift to another world that comes with it. As things become worse, Jant will have to make some choices.

The Year of Our War is very much unlike any fantasy novel I read so far and I really, really loved it, despite the fact that it took me a while to get into it.

Read more on my blog: http://kalafudra.com/2014/10/14/the-year-of-our-war-steph-swainston/ ( )