7 March 2003

REVIEW: Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks
Tor, 2002
Reviewed by Susan Harris

Susan Harris lives deep in the frozen midwest with her partner and their two cats.

I have never been a big fan of high fantasy, largely because I associate it with what the historians call high politics. It's hard for me to get interested in monarchs, kingdoms, alliances, territorial wars, or court intrigue. I have never been a fan of battles, in general; I don't know a pike from a halberd and my military imagination is no better than my notoriously wretched sense of direction. So I would not have expected to fall in love with a book that begins with a young paladin learning that the G'Deon of Shaftal is dead, the House of Lilterwess has fallen, and years of hand to hand combat between the native Shaftali warriors and the invading Sainnite armies are surely about to ensue. And yet, I have. I loved Fire Logic, and because I want everyone else to love it too, I'm going to tell you why.

The term "character-driven" is starting to crop up all over submissions guidelines these days. If you have ever wondered what that really means or why it matters, Fire Logic is your answer. The mystery of human personality is at the center of everything about this universe, including and especially the magic. Many of the central characters are elementals — people gifted with special powers that are governed by one of the four basic elements. The most compelling thing about this system is that earth, air, fire, and water influence not just what the elementals can do, but who the elementals are.

Fire bloods think, feel, and make decisions differently from earth witches or air elementals; and Marks illustrates those differences with such skill and subtlety that they enrich and intensify the characters and their relationships. Each elemental is both a complex and unique individual and an agent and representative of larger forces; and that's what makes this book work. All of the sweeping conflicts and big issues that this book takes on are worked out through the hearts and bodies of people so passionate, troubled, and vividly real that terms like "sympathetic" and "engaging" seem too bland for them.

In addition, Fire Logic gives us two characters — Zanja, a fire blood whose tribe was wiped out in a Sainnite massacre, and Karis, an earth witch whose phenomenal powers are limited by her addiction to the drug called "smoke" — who demonstrate that there is much more to being a "strong female protagonist" than simply kicking ass. Zanja is a skilled warrior, and she certainly does kick ass. However, what's more important is her willingness and ability to "move between two worlds" — to relinquish the certainties other characters cling to for the dangers and possibilities that exist in the spaces between opposing realities and clashing cultures. With a smoke-ravaged body that incarnates not only the spirit of Shaftal but the terrible damage it suffered during brutal colonial rule, Karis demonstrates a different kind of strength as she struggles to control an addiction she can't break and learns to trust her own logic. Both are beautiful, intense, heartbreaking women, whose love for each other develops as naturally and as compellingly as the rest of the story.

My partner told me, "You'll like Fire Logic. It's got a lot of heart." That is certainly true, and certainly important. It is clear from page one that Marks is totally committed heart and soul to this world and these people. But Fire Logic also has a lot of brain. This book is smart about the realities of colonization in a way that most fantasy — and, alas, many a real-world leader — isn't. The book is about accepting the terrible consequences of that kind of history, and redefining the war against oppression so that it can do something besides more damage. In the end, the battle is not between the natives and the invading colonists. It's between the Shaftali who believe that the solution to all their problems is to expel the Sainnites, and the Shaftali who have learned through painful experience that this dream of purification is a dangerous fantasy.

We need more books with this kind of heart; we need more stories with this kind of intelligence. And this kind of book doesn't happen without a struggle. The industry is still fighting some of the things that make Fire Logic what it is. Broad Universe members will probably already know something about how hard Marks had to fight to get this book to the shelves. The war isn't over yet, but I'm glad that Fire Logic won this battle.