In addition to the somewhat Moorcockian Law v Chaos dispute, the Priest of the Stone and his followers are very much the civilised city folk, whereas worship of Avalei is popular amongst the untutored country people. On the other are the King’s son and the High Priest of Avalei, a love goddess whose worship is seriously Dionysian. On one side are the King and the Priest of the Stone, who are stern puritans. Unfortunately for Jevick, Olondria is in the grip of a ferocious religious war. Shortly thereafter, having partaken in a somewhat riotous religious festival called the Feast of Birds, Jevick becomes haunted by Jissavet’s ghost, who will not let him rest until she has had a proper island funeral. Her parents are taking her to a holy shrine in Olondria in hope of a miracle cure, but no one else thinks this will work. On the sea voyage, Jevick encounters Jissavet, a young island girl who is suffering from an apparently incurable disease. When his father dies, Jevick heads off on his first trading mission to Olondria, looking forward to visiting civilisation at last. This gives the young man of love of literature. Because he is destined to inherit the business, Jevick is given a tutor from the country of Olondria, where his father’s pepper crop is sold. He lives in a small, island community where most people can’t read and the local language isn’t written at all.

The hero of the story, Jevick, is the son of a successful spice merchant. Personally I’m having difficulty ranking it against the Jack Wolf novel, which is very good in other ways, but I really liked Samatar’s book too. Gary Wolfe said of it, “it’s the most impressive and intelligent first novel I expect to see this year, or perhaps for a while longer”, which is very high praise indeed.

Her poetry and non-fiction have been getting published online for a couple of years, and she has a bunch of short fiction out as well now, but A Stranger in Olondria is her first novel and it has already been receiving rave reviews. Not that Samatar is totally new to the community. This year’s gem looks like being Sofia Samatar. One of the (many) great things about Small Beer Press is that they can be relied upon to discover great new writers that mainstream publishers might be reluctant to take a risk on.

A stranger in olondria review