“We’re shown all this stuff we were trained to want, shown the great adventure, and we jump at it like the dazzled fools we are. We’re too young to know any better, to know that we won’t triumph and be heroes, that we won’t be returned to the other world as if no time had passed, that the lies in the stories aren’t about mermaids or unicorns or harpies—the lies are about us. The lies are that we might be good enough, and we might get out." [loc 3840]
Elliot Schafer is thirteen when, on a 'school trip', he turns out to be able to see things that his classmates can't perceive, and is invited to continue his education in the Borderlands. Elliot is short, red-haired, prickly, and intelligent. As many of us can attest, these would not confer benefits in the contemporary world -- and they don't magically make him popular or successful in the Borderlands, either. He takes an instant dislike to blond, charismatic Luke Sunborn, and falls instantly in love with elven warrior-maiden Serene (full name 'Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle').
Luke and Serene are the two constants throughout the five school years covered by In Other Lands -- not least because Elliot and Luke team up to help Serene succeed in her council studies (diplomacy, politics et cetera) as well as her warrior training. Luke grew up as part of a family of legendary warriors; Serene is accustomed to a matriarchy where 'gentlemen' are treated as sweet silly things; Elliot likes to read, self-defines as a pacifist, and is far from athletic. Somehow the three of them become ... well, Elliot has never had friends before, and he's insistent that he and Luke are just pretending to get along for Serene's sake. And Serene is, clearly, the love of his life. (Elliot has already decided on names for their children.)
The Borderlands are home to a variety of sentient non-humans: harpies, elves, dwarves, trolls, dryads, mermaids. (Notably, there's no actual magic, at least among the humans.) Elliot is desperate to meet mermaids, and he's fascinated by the various treaties drawn up between different species. What he's not prepared for -- and not prepared to accept -- is human duplicity, double-dealing, corruption and nepotism. And although Luke and Serene manage to improve his physical fitness, it's his intellect and creativity that enable him to make a real difference.
So: magic school, tensions between the physical and the intellectual, crushes and friendships and the school play ... and every year Luke goes back to his father's house, grey inside and out, and realises that his mother is never coming back for him, and his father doesn't care whether he's there or not. The sharp contrast between Elliot's increasing maturity and the static, smothering dullness of his former home is powerfully conveyed: for all the danger and loss that Elliot experiences in the Borderlands, it was the scenes with his parents that really wrenched me.
But then, insidiously, Elliot had already become a character I cared about. I enjoyed his snarky commentary, his awareness of fantasy tropes (some pointed asides on the Narnia books in particular), and his love of reading: I admired his courage, his refusal to be miserable about his own nature, and his curiosity about the Borderlands and its people. (He persuades people of several species to become his pen-pals, which I found utterly charming.) Yes, I did also sometimes want to shake him and yell at him about his attitudes and preconceptions regarding Serene and Luke and his other friends. But I liked -- like - him, and I missed him when I finished reading.
I liked Serene, too, though many of her best moments were when she expressed a particularly egregious elven assumption ("you people expect women to tear apart their bodies and then go to all the bother of raising the children? That takes years, you know..."): she did, however, learn to question those assumptions as the book progressed and she became accustomed to the ways of non-elvish gentlemen. And Luke, golden heroic Luke, no doubt suffered from being seen through Elliot's eyes: I was as surprised as Elliot when Luke's mother, the marvellous Rachel, described him as her 'shy boy'.
And there is so much more here. It's a vastly enjoyable and often very humorous read that also encompasses queerness (Elliot is bisexual or possibly, given some of his flirtations, pansexual, and several other characters experience same-sex attraction); the emotional damage of a loveless childhood; courage expressed in many different ways; learning to love and be loved. I had a major book hangover after reading In Other Lands -- didn't want to read anything else, kept thinking about these characters -- and I'm still recovering. A delight.
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