Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik)

Spinning Silver
Naomi Novik
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Miryam's grandfather is one of the wealthiest moneylenders in the land, but her own father is too softhearted to pursue his accounts... until Miryam tires of living on scraps while those who claim no coin to repay them feast grandly and parade new clothes in the market. As she sets out to turn the family business around, an idle boast that she can spin silver into gold draws the attention of the Staryk, dark fairies of ice whose hunters plunder at will and whose winters linger longer every year. The Staryk king himself demands she change his silver into gold - or pay with her own life. When she is pulled into his world, her life entangles with the lives of Ilena, plain-faced daughter of an ambitious duke who would see her crowned tsarina, and Wanda, whose debtor father only sees her as a thing to be traded... and also with a dreadful demon who wears the skin of a tsar, and whose endless hunger may destroy the worlds of man and fairy alike.

REVIEW: Technically, this is a companion novel to Novik's Uprooted, another fairy tale retelling with Polish roots, though the only tangible connection I found is hints of Baba Yaga around the edges; the two read fine as standalone works. Once again, Novik spins a complex tale onto the bones of an older story, introducing shades of gray into the black-and-white world of fairy tales. The prices paid for power, the lingering ugliness of antisemitism, the bonds of family, and the need to honor one's debts and strike fair bargains give the story plenty of body, and the setting is rich with Eastern European details and magical flourishes. The Staryk echo older visions of the Fae, powerful inhuman beings who view mortals as little more than ephemeral playthings at best (or prey at worst), with their own morality and codes of honor; if one must deal with them, one must deal quite carefully, and even then they may well strip your soul and your life before they're through. Characters, however, sometimes feel jumbled; Novik jumps between many different first-person viewpoints, which could make for occasional times of confusion as I tried to work out who I was "visiting" and where they were, and by the end I wasn't sure they all fully justified their inclusion. Once in a while the reading felt a bit like a slog, in part because of the many character storylines I was supposed to be keeping straight. It ultimately builds to a good climax, proving that everyone - even the haughty Staryk - has things to learn from one another once they take the time to listen and bargain in good faith. The conclusion mostly satisfies, even if - as with Uprooted - some few notes late in the tale, particularly related to the romantic relationships, felt a trifle forced. I enjoyed it for the most part, even if it muddled itself a little too much to rise above a still-respectable Good rating.

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