Monday, April 12, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Stoneskin by KB Spangler

 




Stoneskin is a 2017 short novel from KB Spangler, best known for her A Girl and her Fed webcomic and its related self-published novels and stories, as well as for her editing and presence on twitter.  I've really enjoyed the webcomic and Spangler's social media presence (and editor of much of Ursula Vernon's self-published work), so I definitely wanted to check out Spangler's unrelated work like Stoneskin for a while.  Stoneskin is a bit of an oddity - it's a novel billed as a prequel to a series that wasn't even out at the time of its release - Spangler's "Deep Witches Trilogy."  But after a twitter follow kept promoting both books this week, I finally gave in and read this one.  

And Stoneskin is really interesting, if unsurprisingly not really complete as an installment.  The story revolves around a sentient energy force called the "Deep" that fills the galaxy which possesses the ability to move stuff...if it wants to and/or is directed to by those it befriends.  Those people, the Witches, use it to speed up logistics - moving people around the galaxy faster than with conventional FTL drives - around the galaxy.  The presence of such a force in this galaxy and those who can interact with it, presents a really interesting concept with interesting themes, and Stoneskin revolves around a young girl who is thrown into the role of a Witch way too early, and who has to figure out what it means to interact with the Deep, in a setup for the upcoming trilogy that doesn't quite stand on its own.  Still as an introduction to this world and the upcoming trilogy, it certainly has me really intrigued.  



-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Humans have spread throughout the Milky Way over the last few thousand years.  They have terraformed worlds where they could, and where terraforming wasn't enough to make them livable, they have "bioformed" - changing their own bodies to adapt to the environments.  But none of human expansion would have been possible without The Deep, a sentient alien energy force that chooses its partners and then, at their direction, will transport instantly things and people across seemingly impossible distances in a blink - far faster than any engine or FTL drive could hope to achieve.  The partners chosen by the Deep are known as Witches, who gain immortality as a result of the choice, in addition to their powers to build the galaxy's supply lines.  

Tembi is an eight year old girl, from a planet whose residents' skin becomes hard under stress, when it happens - she finds herself suddenly transports in a blink across the galaxy.  It's a sign that she has been chosen by the Deep to become a witch, something she absolutely does not want.  But even the nice Witch who comes to tutor her and hide her from the other Witches can only do so much to hide her from the Deep....until one day Tembi is forced to join the Witches in their home of Lancaster.  

But what Tembi discovers in Lancaster is that the galaxy is more complex than she knew as a little girl.  For one, the Deep has its own wants and desires, but just doesn't seem able to communicate them very well - a problem for a near omnipotent being and anyone like Tembi chosen to be one of its Witches.  For another, the galaxy is not necessarily a peaceful one, with war breaking out between humans over their own physical differences....a war Tembi knows the Witches could do a lot to stop, if the Witches would become willing to take a stand.....  
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Stoneskin introduces a world where the most important power in the galaxy is an essentially omnipotent sentient being (The Deep) whose power is essentially.....logistics: the transport of people and objects across long distances in seemingly an instant, and definitely far faster than any conventional device could manage (even FTL drives, which are a thing).  But again The Deep isn't just an energy field - it's sentient, with the ability to see potentially across time and space....but with little understanding of human beings' personalities and ideas, causing it to act sort of like a cat to be honest, never acting deliberately malevolently, but totally capable of causing havoc when left to its own devices as it tries to interact with the ones it chooses, the Witches.  And the Witches, so chosen and so powerful in being, band together into an institution with its own code, a code for how to use the Deep for what they think is the best for everyone, and for potentially their own benefit.  

Into this world comes Tembi, a girl chosen at a seemingly unprecedented age by The Deep, who wants nothing to do with it at first, and finds a mentor who at first tries to hide her so she isn't forced to go the Witch's base planet for lessons....but can only save her for so long.  Tembi is an innocent in a lot of respects, and a lot what she learns is normal growing up things - gaining friends, learning love, etc.  But The Deep complicates things - first by trying to force her to talk and interact with it when she doesn't want to*, and then by presenting itself as a power to possibly tempt her, even though she doesn't have the ability to use it like older witches.  

*There's a potential interesting idea here of Tembi being blamed for the Deep causing problems for others because she doesn't want to deal with The Deep even though that's in no way her fault but is absolutely the Deep's, who no Witch will blame for its own essentially abusive acts.  But it's essentially dropped after Tembi is convinced she just has to let The Deep in somewhat.*

But Tembi's innocence also gives her a perspective the older Witches - and some are thousands of years old - seem to have lost.  So she can see that they use The Deep often incredibly frivolously for things that are absolutely not necessary, and that they wrongly treat it as a tool, rather than as a person.  She can see that the choice not to intervene in a war - a war of oppression by Earth-normal humans on those who have been bio-modified to look otherwise - is not a neutral choice, and is absolutely unforgiveable.  But the Witch leadership insists that to involve themselves in one war is to fall off a slippery slope, something the young Tembi - as she learns and sees more about the horrors of this one - cannot simply accept.  

Tembi's growth as a child to a young adult, plus these themes, really works well in this one, and it's hard not to fall in love with her as a result.  So if you view this as sort of a YA novel with some serious themes raised, it kind of works on its own.  But at the same time, nothing is really resolved here, with the one mystery sort of being resolved in a way simply to setup the future books in this universe, which normally would irritate me a ton.  But since this novel is so upfront about being a "prequel" or a prologue, it's hard to get mad about it all.  And the themes that are present here are REALLY interesting so I am very interested in seeing how things go from here, and have purchased book 1.  

An excellent start.

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