children's fiction
Jenny Pausacker
Isobelle Carmody
The Keeping Place
Penguin $19.95pb,754pp
0 670 85358 5
THE FANS, BOTH YOUNGER and older, of Isobelle Carmody's science
fiction series, The Obernewtyn Chronicles, have had to wait a
while for The Keeping Place , first promised in 1990 (although
another chronicle, Ashling, intervened and Carmody has published
five sf/fantasy titles in the interim).
But Obernewtyn's fans will find it was worth waiting. The Keeping
Place 's 750 pages offer a chance to catch up with old friends and
characters you love to hate; to make new acquaintances; to learn
more about Carmody's invented world and to follow Elspeth Gordie
on the next stage of her quest to seek, locate and destroy the
Beforetime weaponmachines.
Unlike many sf and fantasy novels, The Keeping Place is not
hermetically sealed into its series packaging. Isobelle Carmody
knows her world so well and explains its interconnections so
effortlessly that The Keeping Place can be enjoyed by readers
with no prior knowledge of Obernewtyn. Still, the Obernewtyn
fans are a palpable force. Carmody's guaranteed audience grants
her the time and space to take things more slowly and
discursively, analysing the social and political development of her alternate universe to an extent that stretches the usual conventions of sf novels for younger readers.
One of the Obernewtyn chronicles' principal charms is that, while they observe the basic rules of the sf/fantasy genre, they aren't in any sense Tolkien or McCaffrey clones. Isobelle Carmody started writing Obernewtyn when she was in high school, which means that she has been studying her characters and their surroundings for over twenty years -- and it shows. There is an unusual depth of background detail and those details haven't been lifted straight from the standard collection of sf props. By now, Carmody is adding to the mega-text of science fiction described by Damien Broderick in ABR 198, rather than borrowing from it.
However, a guaranteed readership and an intimate acquaintance with a created world have their problems, as well as their advantages. The first half of The Keeping Place moves way too slowly. Carmody hints at developments to come -- from subplots like Miryum's unnerving suitor to major themes like the emerging rebel movement -- but basically nothing happens.
Conversely, the second half of the novel is loaded with action. A key member of the Obernewtyn community of psychic Misfits is kidnapped and the unknown enemy blackmails the Misfits into forming a limited alliance with the rebels, even though the Misfits had previously rejected the possibility of any violent retaliation against the ruling Council.
Carmody gives a thorough and informed account of the tactics and motivations behind the rebellion. The various alliances and power plays aren't just excuses for swash and buckle: they're interesting in their own right. And there's plenty of suspense as well -- a distinctly unexpected betrayal, for example, and a wrenching description of liberating some prisoners. So it seemed a pity that Carmody didn't decide to activate this narrative tension sooner, weaving some of her descriptions of life at Obernewtyn around the kidnapping and its consequences. At present, the novel is guaranteed to engage any reader with an interest in sf/fantasy but it has the potential to reach an even wider audience.