Book Log #21: Fathom, by Cherie Priest

[annathepiper]

cmpriest's Fathom claims on its inner flap that it is "quite unlike anything you've ever read", and I'll give it this, it's right.

Nia is visiting her cousin Bernice and other family members on a island in Florida when Bernice unexpectedly commits a crime--and when Nia refuses to help her cover it up, the two of them are in turn ambushed during their struggle by a water goddess bent on using Bernice to further her aim of awakening a being even older and more powerful than she. Nia is transformed by an earth elemental, and set against Bernice and another human that the water goddess transformed. After several years the two cousins are reunited to discover they're on opposite sides of the struggle between the powers. And Bernice realizes that maybe she's not so much a supporter of her water-witch creator's agenda after all.

While Fathom does maintain a good pace, it's nonetheless a subtler and lower-key story than a lot of what gets sold in urban/contemporary fantasy right now. There's nary a vampire or werewolf or were-anything to be seen. While the lead female characters are vibrant and interesting characters, they aren't the "ass-kicking bounty hunter/witch/zombie-raiser" archetypes you see all over the urban fantasy landscape right now. There isn't a breath of romance anywhere in the story, which is a period piece, set right around when the Depression is getting underway, rather than in the present day. And the monsters of this story are primal, elemental beings--gods setting off against each other and using human pawns to further their agendas. There's a mythic air to this novel that I just don't find in a lot of my current reading, and it was a pleasure to see.

Priest's overall voice in the story was a bit hard for me to follow at times, but this isn't a bad thing; it actually contributed to the feel of this story as one that's more about the conflict between the elemental creatures Arahab and Mossfeaster than it is about Bernice or Nia or any of the other human characters that show up during the course of the plot. The rhythm of the prose is unusual, too--strange and heavy in places, like Nia, transformed into a daughter of stone. So if you take a stab at this one, mind your feet going in, and look out for bodies of water. Four stars.