[Review, Part 2] "Walking the Tree" by Kaaron Warren

Title: Walking the Tree
Author: Kaaron Warren
Genres: Fantasy
Softcover: 525
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, February 4th 2010
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: Review copy from the publisher

Blurb:

Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree.

Little knowing how they came to be here, small communities live around the coast line. The Tree provides them shelter, kindling, medicine – and a place of legends, for there are ghosts within the trees who snatch children and the dying.

Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Before setting off, Lillah is asked by the dying mother of a young boy to take him with her. In a country where a plague killed half the population, Morace will otherwise be killed in case he has the same disease. But can Lillah keep the boy’s secret, or will she have to resort to breaking the oldest taboo on Botanica?

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

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In the first part of my review [HERE] I talked about the plot and pacing of Walking the Tree, without saying much about the worldbuilding. This post will solely focus on the Botanica as a social organism, functioning in an unusual geographical situation. The pacing issues I mentioned in the first review and the repetitive model of the school’s walk find their purpose in the purely anthropological aspect of the novel.

The rhythmic and little altering pattern [walk – welcome feast – customary 30 day stay – sex with the settlements’ men] offers a control sample, establishes the accepted tradition. As the school visits each new settlement Warren layers new elements over this pattern and the reader spots the variables, those tiny differences in seemingly similar people. Considering the issue with overpopulation all settlements are modestly populated and even one distinct trait impacts the social structure of the settlement. They can be caused by the natural resources or cultural developments.

For instance, opposed to almost all settlements the people in Ailanthus have an adversarial relationship with the Tree, because unlike other settlements the Tree grows closest to the sea, thus stealing the land from the people. In Cedrelas, because the Tree produces fruit that makes wonderful wine, people drink and party all night to forget their problems, sleeping through the day. The men in Douglas are violent and there is segregation of the sexes unlike any other settlement. At the same time the people in Rhado are cruel and arrogant, because they have perfected the art of cooking.

Speaking of food, Walking the Tree is a novel about food. Whenever I cracked it open, I felt immense hunger at all the feats, catalogued in great detail. On Botanica, cooking’s an art form and constitutes the islander’s creativity to spawn diversity, when all they have to work with is fish for meat and the few vegetables, fruits and nuts.

Of course, I can’t ignore the small details, which contribute to the overall effect of reading a documentary rather than fiction. Different version of the Myth of Creation, the Death of the Tree, different attitudes towards strangers, prejudices, lore, relationship with the Tree, phobias and all of the other small and invisible details, which suspended my disbelief throughout the novel.

Warren deconstructs our understanding of society – millions occupying the same space, but at the same time remaining utterly indifferent towards each other and so disconnected from our place of origin, nature – and has created a society, subjugated to the whims of a giant Tree. It is a smart reversal of roles, considering how trees disappear due to deforestation and Earth is in imbalance. On Botanica, people have to life according to the Tree’s cycle, but they also live in balance with the Tree. The islanders function in nature’s cycle and don’t parasitize. It’s a certain kind of utopia, albeit some imperfections in the islanders themselves.

Before I conclude my review, I’d like to comment on how Walking the Tree will resonate a lot more with female readers than with male ones. Although the settlements have male Elders to decide who is allowed to walk and male Tale-tellers, the women are the ones to walk the Tree. Apart from the right to travel, women are the ones who choose the men they will sleep with, a rarity in both real and fictional cultures. It is a woman, who discovers the truth about the ghosts inside the Tree and it is a woman, who redefines the world anew. But perhaps most literally, Walking the Tree is the representation of a woman’s journey into womanhood.

[Review, Part 1] "Walking the Tree" by Kaaron Warren

Title: Walking the Tree
Author: Kaaron Warren
Genres: Fantasy
Softcover: 525
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, February 4th 2010
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: Review copy from the publisher

Blurb:

Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree.

Little knowing how they came to be here, small communities live around the coast line. The Tree provides them shelter, kindling, medicine – and a place of legends, for there are ghosts within the trees who snatch children and the dying.

Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Before setting off, Lillah is asked by the dying mother of a young boy to take him with her. In a country where a plague killed half the population, Morace will otherwise be killed in case he has the same disease. But can Lillah keep the boy’s secret, or will she have to resort to breaking the oldest taboo on Botanica?

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

Cover Comment: I’m more than partial with the novel’s concept and therefore with the cover itself. Vegetation and the color green excite me. I admit I’m not an active outdoorsman, but I can’t help but smile whenever I see either –usually both – and what Greg Bridges here is very beautiful. Notice how incorporeal the Tree looks. Considering how the Tree affects the lives of the islanders and acts as the fundamental deity and central figure in the cumulative core of Botanica’s culture. I think this is more of a technical decision to allow more light and better contrast for the school. It still fits though, because ultimately the Tree is a god for the islander. And deities are more often than not incorporeal.

Review: What Kaaron Warren did with Slights – one of my top 2009 novels – applies here as well, if not twice as much. Warren wrote a story, which could not fit any genre, because it is bigger than any genre definition to hold it down. Warren couldn’t have written this novel. To it felt as if she planted seeds of ideas in ash from burnt pages and manure from leather, then watered it with ink and let the story grow roots. Then a stem. Then veins that wind around the reader, blossoms that digest his mind body, dissolve his mind and absorb his soul into its core. Walking the Tree is too organic to be called a story. Warren birthed a world as realistic as it is fantastical. Warren birthed life.

If by any chance there are faults in this book, I don’t think I would have spotted them – apart from minor pacing issues during the middle. My thoughts on the book will mostly consist of why Walking the Tree resonated so heavily with me, unlike any book in the past two or so years [I’m excluding Vandermeer’s Monstrous Creatures as it is a non-fiction collection].

Warren cross-pollinates a simple written language with complex and heavy laden information about the different settlements on the island, captured in vivid and potent imagery. The best examples are when Lillah maps every settlement on her map, summarizing her stay in a few, but well chosen words. In a sense, Lillah captures the essence of each place she visits and it were those tiny bits at the end of every visit – also acting as chapters – that made this all the more worthwhile of my time. Here are my favorite excerpts:

In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Jasmine smelling far too much, clever oiling from the flower, clever thinking brain using fear of spiderwebs, danger for those who have caught child.

Here, the Tree grows Jasmine, the leaves are dark and the Bark is oily.

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In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: the stories are true about these men; they are bred cool but dive for sea sponges. They say they tell true stories but is it truth to terrify us? Do we need to know such truth? And why do they want to steal what would be freely given?

Here, the Tree grows bitter fruit and rich, perfumed flowers. The leaves are pale green and huge, the Bark run through with more insects than I can count.

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In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Pandana broken legs, fish so good you eat too much trap the teachers let them go.

Here, the Tree grows cruel pictures, awful babies and pawpaw. The leaves are blood red and the Bark weeps.

In this part of the review, I won’t speak about the worldbuilding, because I’ve too much to say there – probably more than it’s needed – so I’ll talk more about plot, pacing and the school as it travels around the Tree. Walking the Tree doesn’t have a plot per se or at least it has a string of short term goals, which is why I maintain my opinion that Kaaron Warren doesn’t write a fictitious tale, but documents real people and real occurrences. The beginning preoccupies the central character Lillah with preparations for her evaluation of whether she will or won’t be allowed to join the school as a teacher and walk the tree. This is where I fell in love with the prose, the direction of the story and effortless exposition of an entire world.

It’s during the actual journey, when I had small issues keeping my enthusiasm as strong as it was in the beginning – although I still loved it – and it had a lot to do with Lillah’s goal being largely to function as a trustworthy teacher, find a lover and continue her people’s tradition. I grew tired of the repetitive construction of these visits, even though they provided nuances to keep the reader’s interest. Here is the right moment to mention that Walking the Tree isn’t for everybody as it grows in every direction and then wander, always exploring and winding.

There are several spikes that jar the reader to attention. The sudden appearance of a ghost and the men in Douglas and rescuing Morace from receiving the treatment being just a few, but I did not detect any definite direction. Through the bulk of the school’s journey Walking the Tree functions more as a travelogue rather than as a novel, which isn’t fatal, but different. The transition to this state is natural and the switch from Lillah’s preparations to meet her Elders’ requirements as a teacher to Lillah’s journey – a journey for the sake of the journey as well as for soul searching – barely registers.

This sort-of aimless approach can be attributed to characterization as well. Walking the Tree features an extensive cast of main, secondary and episodic characters. I can’t say that what it’s a character driven – or plot driven – novel, since Warren manages to spotlight everybody, but does so only fleetingly. Only when their appearance’s important to Lillah’s growth, when they happen to be near her or when they are central to an unusual event. It’s a much more true to the story approach, but it also reduces characters to names on the page. Today’s market is pro character and character driven novels climb to the bestseller chart, so this touch-and-go merry go round can be off putting for some. Personally, I indulged in the worldbuilding.

Where Warren truly impressed me is how he crossed over from this nomadic fantasy into the territory of science fiction / post-apocalyptic as Lillah explores the inside of the Tree and then learns the true nature of it as well as of their whole island. This is a spoiler area, so I won’t be doing any sharing.

Next Part: In the next installment I’ll stop on the anthropological aspects of Walking the Tree, explain why this is a feminist novel and talk about food. Yes, food.

[Beyond the Wordcount] Kaaron Warren on Botanica

This Sunday a new feature debuts on Temple Library Reviews. I had the idea back during my hiatus, when I thought I wanted more [because I do always want more in any regard] from the authors I enjoyed. I wanted an insider on how novels are created. I also realize how much effort, research and inspiration is involved behind a novel-length work, which is there on the pages, but the reader, well at least the average reader, doesn’t see how the wonders are created. What the reader sees are the pages and the words. So my intention is to take the reader beyond the wordcount and introduce him to the authors’ adventures in the land of writing, research and publishing.

My first guest is a personal favorite of mine, Kaaron Warren, whom I asked to write on the creation of the island named Botanica from her novel Walking the Tree [review by me to follow next month]. If you follow Kaaron around the Interwebs, then you will know that Botanica was inspired during her stay on Fiji and this is exactly this story that I wanted to learn.

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My novel, Walking the Tree tells the story of the people who live on Botanica, a large island almost completely filled with an ancient tree.

I live in Australia, and while I’ve spent many days at the coast in my life, this is not the same as living on an island. You couldn’t walk around Australia, unless you had half a lifetime.

So when we found out we were moving to Fiji for three years, I knew that this would help me write the book. It would give me an understanding of what it’s like to live on an island, and what it’s like to circumnavigate that island.

We stayed on a number of small islands while we were there. Our favourites are the less ‘multi-national’ type ones, like Cagalai (pronounced Thangali), Leleuvia and Naigani (pronounced Naingani). The first two were easily circumnavigated, and there is something very fulfilling about walking the whole way around an island.

Pretty islands

I used this feeling in the novel. Most of the young women who set out from their home communities in Walking the Tree stop along the way, and make a new home. They live there for many years but then many of them are compelled to walk back to their birth communities.

I already knew I wanted this to occur, thinking about the many people around the world who live elsewhere but then feel a great desire for ‘home’ after many years. But circling those islands gave me a sense of how it feels to complete the circle, and how it would feel not to complete that circle.

Whenever we stayed on an island I took many photos and notes of how the water looked, the sand, the vegetation. I felt the sense of isolation and I understood that the people who live on the islands are not often compelled to leave. Again, it’s the sense of completeness, of being whole, you feel when you live in such a place.

One experience I had which made it, mood-wise, into the novel, was the time I was abandoned for less than 30 minutes.

We’d gone out to the deep sea for snorkeling. It was a small boat, with about 15 passengers. The boat dropped us variously about the place, and we drifted, and the boat drifted too. At one stage, I felt that even if I called, he wouldn’t hear me.

But he knew what he was doing, and we were all collected.

The Boats

On the way back, he stopped to let us climb onto a very small island, maybe 100 metres in diameter. I think he said there had been families living here once and there was small evidence of that; some rusty tin cans, a deeper hole right in the centre of the island. My friend and I, fascinated, looked in detail at the things left behind, as did another couple of people.

When we looked up, we were the only ones still on the island.

The boat was taking off with everybody else on board.

“We’ll come back,” the driver called. One man onboard held up a fishing line.

“Fishing!” he said, which explained nothing.

The Deserted Island

There was no shelter on the island; none at all. We had water bottles, which were almost empty. There was no vegetation bar some stringy bushes. It was really, really hot.

The four of us sank into the water to keep cool, and we kept calm by talking about how we would build a fire, how we’d catch fish, how we’d find water, if, you know, this was real and we had been abandoned.

It was 30 minutes before they returned. The arrogant fisherman had nothing, which meant we had to drive slowly home for him to find fish. We were sunburnt and thirsty.

That experience, that sense that I was alone and that there was nothing else in the world; that, I used in the book as well.

[Review] 'Walking the Tree' by Kaaron Warren

Title: Walking the Tree
Writer: Kaaron Warren
Pages: 528
Genre: Fantasy
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Publisher: Angry Robot Books

Lillah lives on Botanica, an island where life, society and culture is dominated by the giant Tree. She has come of age and is about to embark on her journey around the Tree as a teacher. Walking the Tree is the story of Botanica as seen through Lillah’s experiences.

Part travelogue, Walking the Tree follows Lillah’s journey around the Tree, from village to village, here known as Orders, detailing the varying cultures she encounters along the way. Each Order has it’s own particular ‘flavour’, derived from the nature of the Tree in that locality. For example, the Order of Aloes make perfume oil from the abundance of jasmine plants that grow there, and this permeates the village society and cultural norms. The sea also plays a role here, as every Order has it’s own distinct relationship with it, some embracing it’s bounty, others fearful of the ‘monsters’ living beyond the shore.

Each Order has it’s own version of creation and end-times myths with story-telling being a vital way of passing knowledge on to the visiting Schools while providing insight into the local culture. As Lillah progresses around the Tree, she meets good and bad Orders, and ‘maps’ her journey after each encounter. It is this aspect of the book I found enthralling. It was fascinating to read each version of the myths and how they reflected the personality of that particular Order.

Ultimately, Walking the Tree is both a history of Botanica and it’s people, and Lillah’s quest to find her place in Botanica. She is insightful in her observations and learns from her experiences. Her relationships with her childhood friends and the boy Morace are integral to understanding Lillah, her hopes and fears being changed by her journey and the people she encounters.

Overall I found Walking the Tree to be easy to read, yet complex human issues are explored throughout. I loved the descriptive prose and how the Tree dominated the lives of all those living around it. In some ways I was reminded of Sherri Tepper and Ursula le Guin, with the female-orientated society and a strong bond with nature being dominant themes in the book. The world-building is amazing, with great attention to detail, yet the balance between Botanica, the Tree and it’s people is never compromised.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I was hooked from the opening pages and was immediately drawn into Lillah’s world. I feel Walking the Tree is a book that will benefit from re-reading as the earlier sections contain clues to the eventual path Lillah takes. She is a strong narrator and carries the story well, but the ultimate star of the book is the Tree itself. It gives life, nourishes the people, dominates their existence, yet is cruel and demanding in sacrifice, just like nature itself. There are lessons for all of us in Walking the Tree, but my view is that women will identify more with this book and the themes presented within it.

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PS: This review has been graciously handed down to me from Cara Murphy [@murf61 on Twitter], reviewer and reader extraordinaire, who will also soon be a part of the Temple Library Reviews squad.

"Slights" by Kaaron Warren

It's Angry Robot Book Marathon on Temple Library Reviews, so I am bringing out past reviews from the books that I have read and loved along for the ride. It just seems like a shame to let all these great titles go without a second shot out. So here is what I thought of 'Slights' way back in August 2009.

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Title: "Slights"
Author: Kaaron Warren
Pages: 528
Genre: Horror
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Publisher: Angry Robot

What you can expect: Perhaps one of the most disturbing psychological horror stories imbued with withering decadence and written as a memoir. This story haunted me and froze my blood in a manner I have yet to encounter.

Pros: Original. From conception to execution Kaaron Warren redefined fear for me and stole my breath. Characterization explores the deepest, darkest aspects of the human mind and surpasses what I ordinarily expect.

Cons: Its built-up was painfully slow. At times I wondered whether I was reading just a stranger than average mainstream novel or a horror one. I admit the waiting was worth it, but boy was it nerve wrecking.

Summary: Stephanie “Stevie” Searle has never had it easy. Her father, a cop, died back when she was nine years old under mysterious consequences, leaving her with a mother she can’t connect to and a brother, who constantly overshadowed Stevie throughout their whole lives. At the age of eighteen, after a car accident, where she was the driver, Stevie loses her mother and has a near death experience that changes her life. In it Stevie awakes in a dark room with all the people she ever slighted gathered around her to exact their revenge. This creates an unhealthy relationship and fascination with death, which slowly transform her into a monster of her own device.

Characters: I can’t recall ever reading a memoir at least outside classic titles and even there my memory serves against me, so to witness a very clear distinction between a sole, active character and the rest presented exclusively through that person’s mind frame is quite a jolt and offers a break from typical characterization. It’s a tricky business to get a person excited over a memoir-type story that isn’t an action story, but rather a slice-of-life in design, and resting the success on one character is risky. To pull it off the author must understand enough of human psychology to pen a believable protagonist s well as pull the readers’ strings right.

This is where Warren eclipses most fiction I have ever read, since she covers all the criteria listed above and doing so with one of the most unsympathetic human beings ever conceived in a novel as far as my reading experience is concerned. Stevie is a train-wreck caught in a loop and possesses the most unflattering set of human traits, which instantly cause revulsion in the reader. I couldn’t connect with her or identify myself with her position in life, but I wanted her to find peace for she was hurting. This was the cord that attached me to the story and kept me reading. Was Stevie ever going to find closure and end her frantic search? By the end of the novel, I wished I hadn’t asked it.

Story: I managed to identify two plots intertwined through the whole book. The first one dealt with Stevie’s obsession with death and the afterlife. This is where Warren’s originality and master craftsmanship in horror shine through. So far mythology and fiction have agreed that hell is one big place for all sinners. Kaaron toys with the idea of individual hell for each human populated with all the people one has slighted, while the slighted appear in countless other hells’. It’s, I think, revolutionary in the way fiction has viewed the afterlife and Stevie’s exploration and documentation of it comes after many trips to the dark room.

I loved that Stevie never stuck with one technique to commit suicide and experimented a lot. Funny thing is that she never expected to get rescued and counted on dying, so surviving so many suicide attempts makes her quite lucky, though she doesn’t view it that way. In the end though it’s all valuable information. But she doesn’t always restrict her research to herself and branches out with her dying patients she meets in her line of work as a nurse as well as her own test subject lured in from the street. It’s the transition from strange interest and harmless observation to murder in the quest for knowledge that’s sickening and yet beautiful.

The emotionally cold and intelligent madness that has taken over Stevie’s life is what makes her the most frightening villain or monster. The second plot line in “Slights” reveals where this madness stems from and that it had nested long ago in the family, when Stevie decides to dig in the backyard in order to plant jasmine. It turns out her father was a serial killer of sorts, which means the killer gene was hereditary. Through flashbacks, episodes with Doug, Stevie’s dad’s former partner, as well as Stevie’s aunt’s cryptic messages the reader learns the whole story behind the Searle’s family secrets.

The Verdict: [A++] A most grotesque mosaic of human debauchery and demoralization, whose beauty lies within the intricacy of its design. It builds painfully slow, but when “Slights” reaches its most potent state you will fear contact with strangers. I have more to say, much, much, but I want you to find all the surprises. Must-read.

[Interview] Kaaron Warren on Angry Robot Books

It is high time my love fest for Angry Robot Books to start and I am kicking it off with a blitz style interview with the always delightful Kaaron Warren. Since, this is a Marathon dedicated more or less to the publishers through the books and author I meet, this interview will focus on the author's experience with Angry Robot Books, magic man Lee Harris and his boss Marc Gascoigne.

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Since we are spreading the love about Angry Robot, tell us. What is the best thing about Angry Robot?

There’s a lot of good things I can say about Angry Robot Books. They love what they do, and they’re willing to take risks. They’re choosing amazing books, most of which don’t fit neatly into any genre compartments. They have a keen, book-lover’s eye for story. They’re very funny and lots of fun to be around. They’re highly professional, highly experienced publishers.

Can you tell our readers how you became an Angry Robot author? Submission process and everything.

It was really one of those ‘be prepared for when an opportunity comes along’ situations.

I’ve been writing and publishing since 1993, working hard at it even when my children were young. I published a lot of short stories and made contact with a lot of writers and editors. I wrote three novels, finishing the third in 2008 while living in Fiji.

When Marc Gascoigne was asked to set up a new imprint of Harper Collins, he knew he wanted to seek far and wide for authors. He wanted an international cast of characters. So he asked writers he’d worked with when he was with The Black Library to give him the names of writers they respected in their own countries.

Matthew Farrer, a Warhammer 40,000 novelist, included me on his list.

From there, I nervously emailed Marc to tell him I had three novels and he asked me to send him proposals for all three. His response to the proposals was to ask for sample chapters and his response to the sample chapters was to ask for full manuscripts.

That was a nervous time, waiting for his final response.

Then I got an email, telling me that Angry Robot would buy all three novels. I had to get my husband to read the email for me, to check I wasn’t dreaming!

What is the experience to work with Lee Harris? How have you found working with Lee Harris? AND Marc Gascoigne.

Lee, Lee, Lee. Lee is one of the more interesting characters I’ve worked with. He’s a very funny man, almost as funny as my Uncle Peter who’s very funny indeed. He’s also extremely smart and I have a lot of faith in his judgment.

On the editing side I worked more with Marc Gascoigne on all three books. Marc is an intuitive editor, seeing the story at many levels and able to verbalize where problems lie without being intrusive.

Since this blitz interview is more or less oriented towards the imprint, do you mind sharing a bit of inside information about how the marketing campaign for your novels progressed? Did you work closely with the imprint and what was the strategy?

The marketing side has mostly come from Angry Robot. They’re pretty good, aren’t they? They understand how the world works and have utilized the internet really well.

You were nominated for a Bram Stoker award. As a horror writer, this is a pretty epic moment in your career. Please do describe how you took the news.

“Slights” made it onto the preliminary ballot of the Stoker Awards, but not to the finalist list. Even to make it as far as I did was remarkable. Really, it’s not something I thought about as I was writing the book. If you spend your time thinking about awards, I don’t think you get anything done!

Speaking of Lee Harrris, he was the one who broke the news. He sent me an email saying “Check this” or something like that, nothing else. Very exciting moment, opening that link!

For a limited period, readers of Angry Robot had the opportunity to read a novella along with your newest release ‘Walking the Tree’. This is a pretty good marketing move from the side of the publisher. Can you share how it came to being?

This came about because the publisher trusted me and had faith in me as a writer.

I wrote “Morace’s Story” after I finished the first version of ‘Walking the Tree’, because I had the idea I wanted to show the character Morace’s point of view, and I wanted there to be a young adult version of the book available.

Angry Robot went with the free novella idea because they thought it would be a good extra and because they’re willing to try new things in publishing.