The Ice Is Coming

There's a glut of fantasy on the shelves today -- and so much of it is just a poor copy of Tolkien, or Harry Potter, or Star Wars (itself little more than a bottomless maw of merchandising these days). For something with more originality & genuine magic, we have to go back 2 or 3 decades, when writers like Patricia Wrightson were creating forgotten jewels like this Young Adult fantasy novel. Wirrun is a young man in Australia, an Aborigine with one foot in the white man's world. When ancient forces of ice awaken & threat the land of his ancestors, he's chosen to find & rouse the Eldest Nargun, an Aboriginal fire spirit, to restore the balance. On the surface, it seems a traditional coming-of-age fantasy story, done up in somewhat more unusual trappings. But Wrightson doesn't settle for a rehash of the familiar. She develops the story slowly, letting us get a feel for the Aboriginal worldview, so very different than our Western preconceptions. There's far more characterization & exploration of culture here than lurid special effects duels or cardboard cutouts hacking at each other with generic swords. It's much more than a simplistic good guys vs. bad guys story! Wirrun's journey is fraught with unexpected dangers, touched with surprising humor at times, and filled with the delights of a completely different mythology & outlook. You sense that Wrightson isn't just using the Aboriginal background as exotic set dressing, but hopes that the reader will come to understand & value an older way of life & experiencing the world. And I think she succeeds very well. This novel is complete in itself, with a definite ending. But if you enjoy it, you'll want to seek out her two sequels to it, "The Dark Bright Water" & "Journey Behind the Wind." Both develop & deepen the character of Wirrun & his relationship to his ancestral world, rather than simply rewriting the first novel. Most highly recommended!

This is a quiet, contemplative book. There's not a lot of "action" and nothing blows up, which I found rather restful. The hero, Wirrun, sees the world through a traditional Aborigine viewpoint, and the book does a good job of portraying how different his world is from that of the white people who interact with him. A wealth of detail and some nice plot twists near the end kept up my interest, and by the end of the book I felt I was starting to get a "feel" for the way Wirrun thinks. Those who love C.J. Cherryh's detailed portrayals of alien societies should love Patricia Wrightson's portrayal of a society equally "alien" to many "modern" readers, but much closer to home.