Tempo - Steph Swainston

Note: this text is only available in Dutch translation. I am not aware of any plans to publish it in English.

In September 2016, I read Het Rad van Fortuin, the first story written by Steph Swainston of the Splinters series. Splinters are thin paperbacks published by Dutch publisher Quasis one can read in an hour or so. Most of them are written by local talent but some are translations. They are just long enough to give the reader a good impression of an author's style and talent, and evoke a sense of curiosity in the reader about the author's other work. In Swainston's case it worked quite well. Het Rad van Fortuin was the first piece I read by Swainston. Since picking it up, I read four of her novels. When I heard a second Splinter from Swainston was about to be released, I just had to go fishing for a review copy. The publisher kindly provided me with one.

In Het Rad van Fortuin, we are shown a young Jant, one of the main characters in Swainston's Castle series. For this story she chooses a different character. Saker is the immortal Archer, serving emperor San in his fight against the insects. He is scarred by battle, but perhaps even more by his turbulent love life. In this story, he looks back fifteen centuries, on his first major romance, and on the day his jealous older brother tried to put him in his place during a high stakes chariot race.

Games, in some shape or other, are a staple of fantasy. The climax of Raymond E. Feist's first novel Magician is set during elaborate gladiatorial combat, and George R.R. Martin describes jousting tournaments frequently in his ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire series. Chariot races, the subject Swainston tackles here, are also well trodden territory. In The Birthgrave, the novel that would be her breakthrough, Tannish Lee describes a particularly hazardous variety. Guy Gavriel Kay even wrote a duology massively influenced by the culture surrounding the chariot races in Byzantium.

There is a good reason chariot races keep coming back in fantasy. They make for very exciting action scenes. Tempo is no exception to that. The young Saker is a bit of a hothead and he is in love on top of that. It is easy to manipulate him into a situation where he might easily lose his life. Swainston is not just aiming for an exciting scene though. What the story really is about is accepting the consequences of immortality. The love he pursues is one with a huge social taboo attached to it. Do you want to carry that with you for eternity? Is living forever worth losing a lover over?  They are facing hard choices indeed.

Saker as the main character is the perfect choice for this story. In the books we get to see him as a bit of a tragic figure, bent by the burden of his immortality. In this story, he is young, rash, stubborn and a bit cocky. We can already see the outline of his larger than life presence in the Castle though. His tendency to get himself involved in all sorts of dramatic events is clearly present. It fits perfectly with what we know of him from the novels.

Like Het Rad van Fortuin, Tempo can be read on its own, but it clearly invites the reader to dig further into Swainston's work. The dilemma Saker faces is the centre of a nicely contained story. For the reader who is more familiar with Swainston's writing, there are plenty of details that link the story to the wider world of Castle. Given the idea behind the Splinters series, Tempo is a success. It reminded me that I really ought to dig up a copy of Above the Snowline, the only novel Swainston has published I haven't read yet.

Book Details
Title: Tempo
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Quasis
Pages: 42
Year: 2017
Language: Dutch
Translation: Jasper Polane and Pen Stewart
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-94-92099-26-6
First published: 2017

Het Rad van Fortuin - Steph Swainston

I don't often read works translated from English to Dutch anymore. Generally I prefer to read the original. In this case however, I had to make an exception. Het Rad van Fortuin is an expansion of Steph Swainston's short story The Wheel of Fortune, that appeared in the anthology The Best British Fantasy 2013. As far as I can tell, the expanded version has not been published in English (yet). The translation was done by Eisso Post. The text reads smoothly, I didn't find any obvious lines in the text where he struggled with the translation. Without having read the original, the translation strikes me as a job well done.

Jant works for an apothecary in the city of Hacilith. As a little business on the side, he produces a highly addictive substance made out of a species of fern. It brings him in contact with the leader of a local gang, who besides being hopelessly addicted to Jant's product, also fancies him. When he inevitably gets into serious trouble with the gang he decides to give the wheel of fortune a spin. Together with the down on her luck actress Serin, he tries to leave the city.

Het Rad van Fortuin is a prequel to Swainston's Castle novels, in which Jant is the main character. I haven't read these novels so this story was my introduction to this world. Swainston is often associated with the new weird genre. The reason for this gradually becomes clear over the course of the story. The setting is an early industrial one, with references to many of the environmental and social problems of the era. Magical elements and non-human races are mentioned in the story as well though. It is a mix of elements that is pretty much impossible to classify and that is one of the things that makes this story intriguing.

Swainston is not afraid to show the dark side of society. Her depiction of drug use, crime, poverty and violence are graphic. Jant's world is raw, dirty and dangerous. It is the type of secondary world narrative that borrows a page from the grimdark authors that have gained popularity in the past decade. The main character is a reflection of his environment in a way. He is a deeply flawed man. The story hints at a difficult past. He is not above dealing drugs to improve his situation, without the knowledge of his employer. On the other hand he does take in Serin and helps her back on her feet. He has ambitions beyond his current job and is ruthless when it comes to getting where he wants to be. A dark character for sure, possibly a conflicted one,  but not an entirely unlikeable man. You can already tell that this combination of traits will get him in even more trouble in the novels.

Dutch publisher Quasis has released Het Rad van Fortuin as a paperback booklet as part of their Splinters series. Quasis is a small, young publisher. According to a statement on their website they are looking for speculative fiction that crosses boundaries in form, theme or genre. It looks to me like a reaction to the somewhat conservative larger publishers of fantasy (sf is virtually non-existent in translation) in the Netherlands. They play it safe and as a result a lot of not very challenging and fairly standard fantasy is being published. The reader who wants more challenging or experimental material is almost required to read in English.

As an introduction to her Castle setting, this story works very well. There is enough plot and worldbuilding to make it a story that can stand on its own. Between the lines it is obvious that the story is part of a larger whole. There are references to events that, if I'm not mistaken, drive the plot of the novel. It's a story that made me very curious about the larger world and how Jant is going to realize his goals. It also succeeds in a goal the publisher sets itself. Swainston's story is a unique mix of subgenres. The story hints at a larger and very imaginative setting that shows you can push the fantastic in different directions than the post-Tolkien material that dominates the Dutch market. Het Rad van Fortuin is a success on two levels. It has convinced me to try one of Swainston's novels and to keep an eye out for what  Quasis decides to publish next.

Book Details
Title: Het Rad van Fortuin
Author: Steph Swainston
Publisher: Quasis
Pages: 48
Year: 2015
Language: Dutch
Translation: Eisso Post
Format: E-arc
ISBN: 978-94-92099-05-1
First published: 2013, 2015