Alchemical Fantasy–The Amber Garden

The second post in a week, and I’m going to sneak in one more before the year (the decade!) is done.

This post has been far too long in the making. Back in mid-October, I received a .pdf Advanced Reading Copy of my ex-colleague and friend Cynthea Masson’s book The Amber Garden, the third in her Alchemists’ Council series. I wrote about Volume One, The Alchemists’ Councilhere (since I wrote that post, The Alchemists’ Council was awarded the gold medal for Fantasy in the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards) and about The Flaw in the Stone, the second in the series, here. I mentioned in both those posts that fantasy is not a genre I read often (as an example, I have yet to read the third of N.K. Jemisin’s excellent, critically lauded Broken Earth trilogy — this though we have the boxed set on our bookshelf and I’ve read the first two whose values I readily acknowledge).

Disclaimer aside, I welcomed an ARC of The Amber Garden because I’d enjoyed the first two volumes of the series and wanted to know the outcomes of the events set in play therein. As well, I’ve been intrigued by the ideas advanced in the earlier novels–ideas about free will and its consequences; ideas about inter-connectedness between systems large and small, particularly relevant to the climate-change crisis and other environmental threats we’re confronting; ideas about different configurations or permutations for identity. And not least, I continue to be fascinated at the world-building involved. That this complete universe could have been created by someone I know well, worked alongside of for years. . . .

Unfortunately, the ARC arrived at a busy time of year, and I didn’t finish the 424 pages until my flight to Paris. Since then, well, Paris. And Christmas. And a long cold. . . .

So with 2020 only a few days away, determined to get a response posted before 2019 is finished, I’ve written some notes in my Reading Journal, a scantier review than I wrote for the earlier two volumes, admittedly, but only because I’m pushed for time and energy.  Here’s what I wrote, and I’ve transcribed my handwriting below the photo. . . .

I finished this on the flight to Paris week before last, and I can still feel something of the intricate world Cynthea created with its alchemy, its exploration of the possibilities of (& problems wrought by) free will, of the perennial questions about social systems and an individual’s rights (and responsibilities). The series as a whole makes a trenchant commentary on the way these human questions play out in the larger natural world — especially in the role played throughout by bees (both natural & alchemical), by the tree names of the characters (I will admit that I had trouble keeping track of the characters–so many, crossing between several dimensions, spanning many centuries–I would probably have had an easier time if my reading of the three volumes hadn’t been spread out over three years.)

Most intriguing for me, I think, are the ways (my friend and ex-colleague) Cynthea plays with fluidity of gender, of sexuality, but also with the ways individuals can exist differently within their own bodies (or/also, the ways two individuals can exist at once in a single body) — and the whole notion of alchemical conception, which strikes me as an allusion to our Cyborgian contemporary realities as much as it is simply an element of a complex fantasy world.

Much to think about when that last page was swiped, in other words (I read a .pdf of an Advanced Reader’s Copy–the book will be available for purchase in the spring).

Not my usual genre, but it’s been enjoyable spending time with the three volumes of The Alchemists’ Council. Congratulations, Cynthea Masson — you built a world!

The Alchemists’ Council series is published by ECW Press, and The Amber Garden will be available for purchase in March 2020 — it’s currently listed on Amazon and  Indigo.

Author’s website here.

No remuneration was received for this post.