Flesh and Fire (Laura Ann Gilman)

Flesh and Fire
The Vineart War trilogy, Book 1
Laura Ann Gilman
Pocket Books
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Long ago, powerful priest-mages, drawing power from magical grapes and infused wines, nearly destroyed the people and the world with their corruption. Then the gods sent the Sin Washer; when the priest-mages cut him, son of the gods Themselves, down, his blood ended their reign and forever touched the vines. In the centuries since, by his command, none who study the arts of the vine may seek power, and none who hold power may wield magic, while the Collegium of Washer priests ensures balance and peace and adherence to the Sin Washer's edicts. The land of Vin has been thus ever since, and though it's not without its squabbles and strifes and injustices, none wish to return to the terrible times of the power-mad mages...
Or, at least, that is what most people think.
The boy slave was once named Jerzy, but that was beaten out of him, along with all but the vaguest memory of his homeland. All he truly knows, or cares to remember, is life on Master Malech's lands, tending the special vines from which the master derives the power-infused wines for which he is known: healing wines and fire wines, mostly. He tries to keep his head down and do his job, lest he feel the overseer's lash. But when the master learns he can sense the powers in the grapes, the man takes him on as apprentice... just as some new, unknown force begins striking against prince and Vineart alike, threatening to end generations of relative peace. And the new, untried apprentice Jerzy finds himself in the very heart of it all...

REVIEW: Flesh and Fire is fairly decent as fantasies go, creating an interesting world and a decent gimmick with wine magic. There's a not-so-subtle religious angle with the Sin Washer and wine as divine blood, though the Collegium of Washers is not the blameless, devout institution it presents itself as. But, then, the princes and Vinearts also are men of weaknesses and hungers. (And they are men, across the board; a few women hold minor positions of power, but this is not a gender-blind world, and women are firmly the lesser powerholders in it.) Into this world is plunged Jerzy, a boy of no seeming specialness or inherent ambition, but who happens to be touched by the innate talent that could, with proper tutelage, turn him into a Vineart. As he learns the ways of winemaking, the reader learns, too, with many details about the land and the vines and the process, mundane and magical. The boy must also learn how to behave as a future master, with lessons in self-defense and etiquette and politics and history, another way to guide the reader through the setting. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, an island nation faces traitors in the royal court and makes a drastic decision, and later, when Jerzy finds himself sent abroad to further his studies, more of the rot infusing the world comes to light. The story can sometimes wend and meander between plot points, occasionally repeating itself, and Jerzy isn't always that great at being a protagonist, but overall the story's solid enough for what it is. I'm not sure if I'm interested enough to continue with the series, but I'm definitely not ruling it out, which counts in its favor given the iffy reading month I've been having. I wound up rounding it up to a solid four stars.

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