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Title: Territory |
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Review of Territory
- Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday. Ike Clanton.
You think you know the story. You don�t.
Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 is the site of one of the richest mineral strikes in American history, where veins of silver run like ley lines under the earth, a network of power that belongs to anyone who knows how to claim and defend it.
Above the ground, power is also about allegiances. A magician can drain his friends' strength to strengthen himself, and can place them between him and danger. The one with the most friends stands to win the territory.
Jesse Fox left his Eastern college education to travel West, where he�s made some decidedly odd friends, like the physician Chow Lung, who insists that Jesse has a talent for magic. In Tombstone, Jesse meets the tubercular Doc Holliday, whose inner magic is as suppressed as his own, but whose power is enough to attract the sorcerous attention of Wyatt Earp.
Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making her living as a newspaper typesetter, and--unbeknownst to the other ladies of Tombstone--selling tales of Western derring-do to the magazines back East. Like Jesse, Mildred has episodes of seeing things that can�t possibly be there.
When a failed stage holdup results in two dead, Tombstone explodes with speculation about who attempted the robbery. The truth could destroy Earp's plans for wealth and glory, and he'll do anything to bury it. Meanwhile, outlaw leader John Ringo wants the same turf as Earp. Each courts Jesse as an ally, and tries to isolate him by endangering his friends, as they struggle for magical dominance of the territory.
Events are building toward the shootout of which you may have heard. But you haven't heard the whole, secret story until you've read Emma Bull's unique take on an American legend, in which absolutely nothing is as it seems...
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Comments for Territory
- Posted on 2008-03-21
My first book by Bull; but not the last
What a delight to be in the hands of a master storyteller! Characters are engaging and the book does not get in the way of the story, but pulls you in. Off now to buy everything else she has ever written.
LATER: Well, this will teach me to write a review before I've finished the book. I still very much like "Territory", but the voice of the book is more like a voice I am used to reading in Young Adult fiction, and in some places it does get a little silly. The level of attention, for example, that the heroine dedicates (or the author dedicates) to what she wears every day is a bit tiresome. The treatment of the Chinese character Chu is paper thin, ham handed and even a little offensive. I do like the idea of opening a window on the women's world of a town like Tombstone, but that idea never seems to go anywhere. We spend time gettng to know the Earp women, but for no particular reason.
There seems to be a shift in the book from more serious fiction to lighter, younger, sillier stuff somewhere in the middle. The strength of the beginning is what kept me turning pages to the end. If I could change my star rating, I'd give it a 3.5 or 4.
I then went back and read "War for the Oaks", which I think is the author's debut novel written in 1987. It is clumsy, and demonstrates a lot of the same flaws as this much more polished later book -- self-conscious and bad handling of non-white characters, a heroine who spends too much time in the mirror worrying about her clothes, and overuse of devices (in "Territory" it is Chu who swears in every sentence; in "War for the Oaks" it is the phouka who interjects "my sweet" or "my primrose" in every sentence). "Territory" is much better.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-03-06
Hoodoo in the old West
Territory is the first book by Emma Bull that I've read, and it won't be the last. I am glad that fantasy writers like her exist to write succinct, satisfying, stand-alone novels. Territory is original and subtle, featuring memorable characters, both fictional and historical, and careful plotting.
Bull impressively balances the historical elements with the fantasy elements. She provides the perfect amount to detail to recreate late 19th century Tombstone and flavors it with a dab of magic and the occult. The setting and magic system remind me of Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, quality books in their own right.
I agree with the reviewer who cites the absence of a resounding climax; like him, I was expecting a showdown and slightly disappointed when it did not occur. However, I understand why Bull avoids a big gunfight. She prefers subtlety to obvious action, and the novel is more about the characters understanding each other's knowledge and agendas than killing each other. All that said, I anticipate a sequel, which just might give us the most famous gunfight of all time.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-02-22
Delightful historical fantasy, but incomplete
Emma Bull is one of those writers about whom my main complaint is that they don't write enough. Her last novel, Freedom and Necessity (with Stephen Brust) appeared fully a decade ago. So I was delighted to see Territory on bookstore shelves this summer.
This is a fantasy set in the Old West, indeed, in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1880, in the months leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Bull focuses on three characters. Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making an independent life for herself as a newspaperwoman and as a writer of early "pulp" Western stories. Jesse Fox is a horse trainer, previously from San Francisco, who has wandered into Tombstone on the way to Mexico - or so he thinks. And Doc Holliday - well, we know who Doc Holliday is: a dentist, a card player, a Southerner, and a friend of the controversial Wyatt Earp.
Through the eyes of these characters we learn the dicey political situation in Tombstone. Much of the trouble is centered on Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Wyatt wants to be Sheriff, but has no formal position. Virgil is City Marshal. And there no account brother Morgan is on the other side, more or less, and as the novel opens he has just participated in an attempted stagecoach robbery that left two people dead. Doc Holliday manages to create an alibi for Morgan, but in the process becomes a suspect himself. Over the next few months tensions rise between the townspeople, the Earps, and the cowboys, some of them rustlers, who live outside of town - people like the McLaury brothers, John Ringo (supposedly an ancestor of the SF writer of that name), and the Clantons. And the truth about the stage robbery becomes fuzzy as the main suspects all meet violent deaths before they can be arrested.
All this is for the most part historical record. What makes this story a story is the personal experience of the main characters. Mildred is the most engaging, the best depicted. As a woman, she has a different view of the conflict, especially once she befriends the Earps' wives. And her budding career as a reporter gives her a still different angle. Jesse Fox, meanwhile, has his own secret, one he is loath to admit to himself. He can do magic. His friend Chow Lung, a Chinese doctor, urges him to accept his abilities. And in so doing, he realizes that there are other magic users in Tombstone - including very likely both Wyatt Earp and at least one of Earp's enemies. Finally, Doc Holliday is probably the least well realized main character - perhaps because he is historical. His viewpoint serves mostly as an inside look at Wyatt Earp's "camp".
At this level the book follows Jesse's arrival, his investigation, with Chow Lung, of the murder of a Chinese prostitute, and his subsequent realization that the girl was a victim of the political eddies in Tombstone. Meanwhile Mildred moves from typesetter to reporter at the Nugget as she gets interested in the nasty doings of a mining company. At the same time she is romantically drawn to both Tom McLaury and Jesse Fox. And her knowledge of the situation of the Earp women puts her squarely in the anti-Earp camp. Meanwhile Doc Holliday is trying to escape Earp's orbit, urged by his common law wife Kate. But Earp's hold - magical, perhaps? - seems to prove too strong.
The book is quite a delightful read. Mildred and Jesse are engaging protagonists, if, as I mentioned, Doc Holliday is a bit thinner. The fantastical element is modest but well-integrated and well portrayed. I had just one major issue: as the end approached, I realized that the remaining pages were not possibly enough to contain the actual gunfight. And, indeed, the book rather suddenly stops - at a not unreasonable point, with certain crucial information just revealed, but not, it turns out, at the end of the story. Yes - once again we have a book that is only Part 1 of a series (of only two books, I believe) - with absolutely no indication of this fact in the book, or on the cover, or anywhere unless you poke around the author's web page. I will certainly be happy to read the conclusion to this story - but it would have been nice to know going in that Territory is only the first half.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2008-02-04
Creative Twist on History
"Emma Bull is really good." - Neil Gaiman
This quote (printed on the front cover) was enough for me, some years ago when I first discovered Emma Bull's books. I'm SO GLAD to see her publishing again. I've read all her previous books and have been waiting for a while in the hopes that she'd bring something new out.
She does not disappoint! This book adds a really interesting possible background to the Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday story. For the first time in several years, I was really forced to think about the plot, and it wasn't until about twenty minutes after I finished the book I realized the full implications of her addition to the tale.
I won't say more! Go read this book and pay close attention!
Score: 5 - Posted on 2008-01-24
Emma Bull contiunues to amaze.
I did not know what to expect from this book - westerns are not my thing, but I trusted Emma Bull to deliver, and she certainly did. Territory is totally different from her other works (which I love) but this turns out to be a good thing. She continues to grow as a writer and storyteller. Wonderful!
Score: 5