“And now, as grapes are pressed into wine, we press this slave into something greater,” the Master said . . . . “You knew the grapes in the crush were weak. You sensed the difference between the pours, and were able to think it through to determine why. And you have not allowed servitude in the fields . . . to break your spirit. Magic, knowledge, and strength. Those are the three things that are needed . . . . Those are the three things a slave must show, in order to become my student.”
- Title: Flesh and Fire
- Author: Laura Anne Gilman
- Genre: Epic Fantasy
- Year: 2009
I didn’t really expect to like this book. In Flesh and Fire Laura Anne Gilman launches a fantasy series called The Vineart War in which wine — specifically the production, tasting, decanting, and drinking of wine — plays a central role. Not being a foodie myself, or someone much interested in wine, I did not expect to be very excited about a fantasy world where the magic system is based entirely on a beverage. However, whether by virtue of the inherently interesting process of wine-making itself or by Gilman’s considerable charms as a storyteller, I was quickly won over to the premise of Flesh and Fire. Wine can be interesting and, it seems, it can even be magical.
Vinearts are the makers of wine in Gilman’s world, and all wine produced in the Land’s Vin, whether magical or mundane, comes from a Vineart controlled vinyard. Part magician and part agriculturalist, the Vinearts guard their knowledge jealously from one another, and from outsiders. Each vineyard and Vineart tends to specialize in certain varieties of wine and, in the case of spellwine, this takes on political, military, and economic significance. Vintages for healing and for storm-calling, fire-charming and rapid growth are heavily in demand by the rich and the powerful. With such a bottle of wine, anyone can work a bit of magic — but only Vinearts have mastered the process of producing such vintages.
The fields of the Vinearts are worked by slave labor and one such young slave, Jerzy, is our primary protagonist. But Jerzy, it seems, has the ineffable quality that makes him valuable as an apprentice Vineart, and he is removed from his life of servitude to study the oenological arts beside his former owner, Master Malech. Vinearts, themselves childless, have established this system of slavery to create the right conditions to foster the development of young talent: “Like the grapes themselves, a Vineart must be stressed to produce the finest results, grown in poor soil and subjected to the elements in order to shine.” And to her credit, Gilman does not gloss over the dehumanizing and ugly aspects of a system based on slavery, and Jerzy himself only comes to an uncomfortable accommodation with it.
Interesting and complex systems characterize Gilman’s Land’s Vin, and much of the book — which takes its time maturing in much the same way as must a fine wine — is the exploration of spellwines and their making. Along with Jerzy, the reader learns the various rules of soil and weather, the differences in vintages, and the ways and means of wine production. It’s a detailed melding of the real-world process of viniculture with fantastical aspects of Gilman’s own devising, and one made all the more compelling by her rich descriptive language — language carefully deployed with a sensitivity to effect reminiscent of Ursula K. Le Guin.
It is perhaps accurate to say Jerzy’s story doesn’t really get started until the end of Flesh and Fire, but the unhurried pace suits the narrative just fine. There are early rumblings of war and disaster — the novel even starts with a prologue in which a Vineart is assassinated by foul magical means — interspersed with Jerzy’s tutelage. An incident with a sea monster, and a longer sequence in which Jerzy travels to another city to act as representative (and spy) for his master, are exciting milestones in his journey to adulthood — but it is really only at the end of the book, when Jerzy himself runs afoul of the mysterious forces that would throw the Land’s Vin into chaos — that we get a true inkling of the possible scope of Gilman’s epic. And while point of view shifted chapters to the goings on in a distant island kingdom feel somewhat less than integrated in this part of the story, one can only assume they will slot nicely into the greater whole. Because of these things, Flesh and Fire cannot really be considered a standalone — in fact it feels more like part of a mutli-volume novel than a discreet installment.
But it is also a deeply interesting, sensitively written, and impressively original take on the tropes of wizardry and political fantasy, surely the start of a series worth keeping an eye on. Flesh and Fire may even convince me to put down the beer and check out a wine-tasting sometime, and begrudgingly admit that maybe there is something to all this vin stuff after all . . .
{ 2 trackbacks }