ranjit reviewed At Amberleaf Fair by Phyllis Ann Karr
odd and charming
4 stars
When I started reading, I thought this book was poorly written, but pretty soon I got into its rhythm and really enjoyed it. It's sort of a cozy mystery set in a sort of renaissance fair world with magic and adventurers, but with the excitement turned waaaay down. Someone gets ill, something gets stolen, a marriage proposal is turned down, a donkey gets loose. And yet somehow I cared about it all.
Meanwhile, in the background, there's all these weird little details scattered around that made me think that this fantasy world is really a sort of long-post-apocalyptic utopia-in-progress, a designed culture intended to become Anarres in a few dozen more generations. Everyone is obsessed with prices and exchange rates and money but their money itself is a kind of handicraft, and nobody seems to have more money than they need for a few little luxuries, and it seems like …
When I started reading, I thought this book was poorly written, but pretty soon I got into its rhythm and really enjoyed it. It's sort of a cozy mystery set in a sort of renaissance fair world with magic and adventurers, but with the excitement turned waaaay down. Someone gets ill, something gets stolen, a marriage proposal is turned down, a donkey gets loose. And yet somehow I cared about it all.
Meanwhile, in the background, there's all these weird little details scattered around that made me think that this fantasy world is really a sort of long-post-apocalyptic utopia-in-progress, a designed culture intended to become Anarres in a few dozen more generations. Everyone is obsessed with prices and exchange rates and money but their money itself is a kind of handicraft, and nobody seems to have more money than they need for a few little luxuries, and it seems like kind of the last gasp of a simplified market society before they go completely post-scarcity. Violence, ambition, even strong emotions seem to be culturally discouraged. All this was pretty well shown, not told, and then in the afterword the author pretty much confirmed all the weird impressions I got, which means she did a pretty good job of conveying it.