Territory by Emma Bull

[lightreads]

Territory by Emma Bull

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


One of those novels that lays a fantasy gloss over documented historical events, in this case the machinations of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in Tombstone, 1881.



Really enjoyable but not, I think, very successful. It would make a pretty good footnote in an essay about how writing fanfiction permits creativity and depth of reimagination that writing for traditional publication doesn’t. I loved the parts of this book that were about the twisted-up, co-dependent thing between Earp and Holliday, and the literal magic at play. But Bull can’t or won’t mess with her canon, she just wants to explain it, so she can’t actually do much with what she sets up, she can just gesture vaguely towards what we know eventually happens to them. I frankly would have enjoyed this more if someone as good a prose stylist as Bull (not that many, I realize) had posted this as fanfic, with all the free-wheeling that implies, and the ability to comment on the original events by changing them, not just by shoving some magic into the cracks of a rigid structure of set events.*



It was all unsatisfying, actually, including the original character arcs, no matter how charming they were. A bit unfinished, too loosey-goosey at the end. But the whole thing is like that, all about the day-to-day of Tombstone and its newspaper office and horse trainers and Chinese orphans, not about the forward throughline of the plot. And I liked the day-to-day – I think it’s one of the best things about the book – but a little more tension, please, a little more momentum. And a lot more resolution, thanks.



*What other books are fantastical-historical reimaginations of this precision? Not just "inspired by," I mean, but densely-researched interpolations of fantasy into a tightly-documented set of events? Tim Powers's Declare is all that comes immediately to mind -- any others? I wonder if I'd have a similar reaction to all of them, if this is just part of my textual orientation





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Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

What other books are fantastical-historical reimaginations of this precision? Not just "inspired by," I mean, but densely-researched interpolations of fantasy into a tightly-documented set of events? Tim Powers's Declare is all that comes immediately to mind -- any others?

Elizabeth Bear's The Stratford Man follows the history pretty closely.

[lightreads]

*cough* you never saw that. 'hem.

Yeah, I've been meaning to get to that one. Thanks for the reminder.

[ellen_fremedon]

It's well worth reading-- it's full of bits, most of them involving Christopher Marlowe, where you go "Oh, here's the Typical E. Bear Thematic Content, yes, carry on," and then a chapter or two later, those bits turn out to have been doing all sorts of other neat stuff that you didn't even notice or suspect.

[kate_nepveu]

It's supposed to have a sequel, not that you could tell that from anything about the book. I read it, like you apparently, without knowing that and found it a deeply peculiar experience.

Someone told me that they found one of the nonwhite character's storylines to be unfortunate, which when it was fresher in my mind made me say "ooh, yeah, ouch" but I haven't actually re-read it since so I can't say now.

[lightreads]

It's supposed to have a sequel, not that you could tell that from anything about the book. I read it, like you apparently, without knowing that and found it a deeply peculiar experience.


Ah! Someone said so on Goodreads, but I could not find a single indication on Bull's blog, or wikipedia, or anywhere, so I didn't believe it. That does make some sense out of the book, yeah.

Someone told me that they found one of the nonwhite character's storylines to be unfortunate, which when it was fresher in my mind made me say "ooh, yeah, ouch" but I haven't actually re-read it since so I can't say now.

Yeah, I was a little "oh really?" about that. I think because his entire function was to be a mystical oriental, and then die. But I'm not that good at spotting specifically asian stereotypes, so I'm not the best judge.

[kate_nepveu]

*digs*

Ah. Way back in the day.

http://coffeeem.livejournal.com/2007/06/22/