The Girl and the Mountain is the sequel to Mark Lawrence’s superlative The Girl and The Stars. Long term readers will know that I have a deep affection for Mark’s work; I went in hoping I’d love this, and I went in with high expectations. And I can now say that those expectations have been met, and indeed surpassed. This is a great story.
The executive summary is thatLawrence has once again blended science-fiction and fantasy, then added a splash of humanity and shared experience, to create a delightful narrative melange, which is a long-winded way of saying it’s a damn good read, which will make you laugh, and cry, and you won’t be able to stop turning pages, and also it’s two in the morning, how did that happen, but you have to know what’s on the next page, and the next, and the next.
Yaz is a wonderful character. A woman struggling to define herself in an environment which is beyond harsh. Given abilities which would be wonders in other times, and other places, she has to endure their disadvantages instead. Speed and power are no use on the ice field, which rewards only focus and endurance. But Yaz, and indeed those she’s fallen in with, have is not what the ice demands. It’s the ability to shape fire and water. Or to move faster than thought. Or to slip between things, out of the eyes of people and into the realm of myth. If the ice doesn’t care for such things, if the environment brutalises difference, as az well knows, then what do she and her friends bring to the table? And the answer is that they bring their differences. Their perspective. An ability to do things outside a system which is winding down, step by step by step. They walk across the ice, powered by hope and by a desire to see something more, to be something more. That desire is likely to resonate with any reader, and it’s one with a power behind it, backed by a sharpness which engages with the difficulties of difference, but refuses to bow to them, and instead says, here are people, in all their diversity of thought and form and action, and they can, will, must do more than survive.
Of course, there’s a story here. Don’t get me wrong. Yaz is the heart of the story, and her journey into discovering who she is, and whether that is who or what she wants to be, and how she decides to live her life, in a world which seeks to deny that choice, is the iron core at the centre of the tale. Watching her grow, and watching her friends grow alongside her, is a joy. But there’s also a lot going on. I won’t spoil it, but there is, of course, the titular Mountain, the Black Rock, filled with the mysterious priests, the closest thing that the sweeping ice fields have to anb authority, and a cultural touchstone. And alongside those mysterious figures, are the shattered remnants of archaeotech that help define the setting - old cities, crushed under glaciers, holding long forgotten marvels which could shatter worlds, or rebuild them ,if any were able to reach them, and understand their needs. There are the abominations that are those who came before, trapped in the ice, devils singing out for bodies to possess and havoc to cause. And there are voices in the aether which might be more or less than gods and men. And all of them have an agenda, and all of them have a hand in the pot, where Yaz and her fellows are (metaphorically) gently boiling.
There’s betrayal here, and revelation. There’s relationships torn apart, rebuilt, and forged. There’s the promise of the green lands, and the certain and deadly monotony of the ice. There’s truths about humanity and how it feels about difference and survival, and there’s more to learn about the world of Abeth, and how it came to be quite how it is. There’s dark things beneath the world of men, and characters bringing light to it.
Which is all very fluffy. But I don’t want to spoil it. So stick with me here. Because again: Yaz is a beautifully drawn character, vivid and human, who steps right off the page and onto the nearest glacier. Her friends are as interesting, and as real (even the ones who may not be). And her enemies are vital and clever and compellingly vile. The world lives and breathes around them, from the starkly lit fluorescent tunnels of the underground labyrinths of mad cities, to the gentle creaking of the black ice in the face of an endless blizzard. And the story itself, filled with revelation and hard human truth alike, will take your hand and pull you out along the ice with it,and you’ll end up, as I did, turning pages deep into the night.
The really short version: this is a bloody good book, I couldn’t put it down, and I bet you won’t be able to put it down either. Go and get a copy right now.
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