A+
Title: War for the Oaks
Author: Emma Bull
Publication Info: Ace 1987
ISBN: 9780765300348
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Once Upon a Time, there was no urban fantasy. Then, there was Emma Bull and her novel War For The Oaks. Take note, Bitches, this is how to popularize (and, in fact, she’s widely credited as having invented) a genre. If you like urban fantasy, urban paranormal romance, and pretty much anything else that involves supernatural creatures in a city, you owe a big thank you to Emma Bull. Lord knows, I personally owe a big thanks to Emma, without whom I would not have spent the last 24 years saying things like, “A big rock”, “hanging arse up in gorseberry bushes, whist’ling pop’lar songs”, and, “You know, she got a little fey, and we just drifted apart” to the utmost confusion of those around me.
Here’s the part of the review where I try to sum up the plot without giving too much away, and let me just tell you that this plot synopsis is playing merry hell with my spell checker. The Seelie Court (that’s faeries, of course) is at war with the Unseelie Court. They want a real war, with real death, and since they are immortal, they can only get actual carnage by binding a mortal to their cause (it’s all very folklorish). So, they assign the phouka (a man who changes into a black dog) to pick out a mortal and then to guard her until the battles are concluded. The phouka, who never does get a name, selects Eddi McCandry, a struggling Minneapolis musician. Eddi, however, has a mind of her own and refuses to be an unthinking pawn in the Court’s endless games. Much mayhem ensues including humor, adventure, tragedy, magic, music, and the most swoonworthy of romances.
One reason War for the Oaks works so well is that Emma grounded all that Seelie stuff by following the age-old advice to “write what you know”. Emma actually did front a rock band in Minneapolis for a long time, and so the setting, and the process of leading a band, come across as absolutely real. People don’t just wander around saying mystical things – they eat, they drink coffee, they go to Denny’s. They worry about rent and they lug heavy speakers up and down stairs and they practice and practice and practice their craft of music in a rehearsal space that lacks air conditioning. I’ve never been to Minneapolis but I would swear that I’ve been to the crappy bar, the restaurant with the “weird vegetarian eggplant food”, and those wonderful dance clubs and parks, because they are so perfectly described. Then the fantasy elements are seamlessly integrated, and you wind up seeing the realistic setting with an overlay of magic almost without noticing the transition. And what an overlay of magic! This was the first book I read with such a terrifying and glorious assemblage of otherworldly folk. There are majestically lovely nobles straight from stories like Tam Lin or the Lady of the Lake, and there are crazy creatures that will be familiar to Brian Froud fans. Some things are ugly, some lovely, but nothing is cute. As Eddi’s friend Carla says about one creature, “It wasn’t Tinkerbelle, honey. I’m never gonna watch “Peter Pan” again”.
Speaking of Carla, the friendship between Eddi and Carla is awesome. We should all have a friend like Carla. She’s fiercely loyal, she’s funny, she’s talented, she has a pretty great romance of her own, and it’s made quite clear that without her business savvy Eddi would still be playing at the crappy bar, or some variation thereof. Carla and Eddi talk and act and feel like real people, and so does everyone else, even the people that aren’t, strictly speaking, people. All the characters shine and all the dialogue sparkles with intelligence and wit. I could easily fill this review just by listing one great line after another. Every emotion feels authentic, so when tragedy strikes, you don’t feel manipulated. The phouka specializes in erratic and confusing behavior, but he makes such a point of it that his inconsistencies are in character and not just random whims of the author. After reading this book at least once a year for the past fourteen years, I know these people. They may be imaginary, but they feel like friends.
And OMG the clothes! Why, why, why don’t I have these clothes? The phouka is able to summon his outfits from the air – and what outfits they are. The idea of being able to magically summon a Victorian brocade dressing gown makes me woozy with envy. Eddie does not have such sartorial advantages, but apparently she is the queen of vintage thrift store shopping. Some outfits are selected for practicality (jeans, a turtleneck, and a sweater for a cold night in the park), which I appreciate. But she wears this one dress to a dance that I have been looking for my entire adult life. I have almost no interest in fashion, I never wear anything except jeans and T-shirts, and I still think I would seriously consider committing a felony to own any of the outfits described in this book, with the exception of the white pants (it is set in the ‘80s, after all – they can’t all be winners).
The discerning reader of this review will have guessed that Eddi and the phouka develop a certain frisson of interest between them. They are one of my favorite couples of all time, because they have passion to burn but they also have a strong base of friendship and mutual respect. As the book progresses, they move from being adversaries to becoming partners, and a lot of this process has to do with the phouka becoming truthful with Eddi, to the point of helping her see through the glamour that the Seelie Court seeks to impose on her. Even when they are at cross-purposes, Eddi and the phouka never underestimate each other. They both have their own areas of expertise and the phouka doesn’t pretend to be an expert on music, or, indeed, pretty much any aspect of Eddi’s mortal world, just as she admits complete ignorance of the supernatural world. They learn from each other because they are both willing to admit ignorance, and that implies a certain setting aside of pride that I admire. I am a total sucker for the mutual respect/mutual honesty trope in real life and in fiction so of course Eddi and the phouka make my heart all fluttery. Incidentally, for those who are looking for more diverse romances, the phouka is described as having dark brown skin and curly black hair, Dan, the keyboardist, is African American, Carla is Italian American, and the remaining main characters are very British-Isles ethnic looking.
In short (too late) I just can’t imagine anyone not liking War For the Oaks. It has everything you could possibly want in a book except pirates and space ships – and the phouka wears a sort of piratey ruffled shirt at one point so that partially covers the pirate angle. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s thought – provoking, and did I mention that it is sexy as hell? With all those significant glances and enigmatic statements and, oh yeah, some really hot, if not extremely explicit, sex? Just go read it; if you combine it with some good coffee and some good songs in the background, I can almost guarantee you the perfect day.
War for the Oaks is available from Amazon | BN | Powell’s | Book Depository. I was unable to find a digital copy available.
Oh, love that you reviewed this to share with future generations of the War of the Oaks rocks club! This is also an old favorite of mine! I read this book YEARS ago. It’s stood the test of time for me. I really liked the characters, world-building and the classic good against evil. And yes, it did start, IMO, the UF world. Though, it also started a trend of seelie vs. unseelie world, too!
I think it’s pretty common for a group of people, together and separately, to develop a new look/sound/style/genre, and one person to get the majority of credit for making it mainstream. WftOaks touched a literary nerve in a really unique way, but I would never intend to imply that Emma Bull was working alone. She was part of a group of writers who, according to wikipedia (which of course is never wrong), were/are friends and were all instrumental in popularizing fantasy and/or UF. This group included Charles DeLint, Terri Windling, Ellen Kushner, Will Shetterly AKA Emma Bull’s husband, Patricia Wrede, and Steven Brust. Seriously, can you IMAGINE hanging out with this group of people? When they get together, for coffee, for instance, doesn’t their combined awesomeness cause the cafe to implode into a cloud of glitter or something?
Carrie: Too true! It’s also very fun to read a bit about the Flash Girls and realize that not only Emma and the Fabulous Lorraine (aka Neil Gaiman’s assistant) were involved – I think Steven Brust played on some songs, and Neil Gaiman wrote some of their most fun songs.
You have no idea how happy seeing this review made me on the start of a very Monday-ish Monday. War For The Oaks is a wonderful romance, and very much a favorite sort (I like lots of plot with the romance growing out of it and not vice versa.) It’s also the first thing that ever made me consider moving to Minneapolis, and after being here nearly 20 years, I’m terribly glad it did!
I love this book. I picked it up in a used bookstore not knowing anything about it—imagine my surprise! Everyone should read it.
I love this book. I picked it up at a used bookstore in college and fell in love with an entire genre through it. This book made me seriously want to toss my major, join a rock band and move to Minneapolis. Then I remembered I was tone deaf and hated the cold where I was and I knew it was warmer than Minneapolis so I just settled for rereading the book over and over again. It was like a post-finals week ritual.
Sounds great. Too bad it’s not available in ebook format. The only non-ebooks I’ve bought in over a year are for reference or study (and I buy around a dozen books a month). Please be so kind as to post something if it every comes out in ebook, you are a wonderful contributor to my TBR list.
Anyone with an ereader want to test this link and see if it’s current? I don’t have an ereader and I’m a little reluctant to dump a full length novel onto my laptop because of memory and general incompetence. This says it’s avail free but it might be out of date.
http://www.epubbud.com/book.php?g=MNBPDDJM
ooh, thanks Carrie S for finding the free ereader link! am reading it now.
@ Kelley Marie: AWESOME! I hope it being free doesn’t mean Emma is getting ripped off. I’m never sure how that works. Thanks for being the test subject!
War for the Oaks is a book I have loved and re-read for years, so I agree with the good rating. And the first urban fantasy that I ever read was definitely Charles de Lint (like him too). But I have to mention that the first book I ever saw that had the Urban Fantasy label officially applied to it (on the cover) was Knight of Ghosts and Shadows by Mercedes Lackey (though this was not the first of her books that would have qualified for the label either). To this day the first line on its back cover gives me a smile (“ELVES IN L.A.?”) and reminds me of when the whole urban fantasy idea seemed very fresh and original. All these books have lots of nostalgia for me, as UF has been probably my favorite subgenre ever since.
A look around EPubBud.com, unfortunately, strongly suggests that much of the content available there—certainly most uploaded by that particular user—has been uploaded without the permission of the publishers or rights holders, so it’s very unlikely that the above-linked e-text of War for the Oaks is an authorized release.
That said: there was an authorized ebook made available at least briefly at Tor.com a couple of years ago (a post on Emma Bull’s LiveJournal indicates that it was a free promotional download for a short period). It seems odd, ebooks being ebooks, that Tor would have let that go “out of print”, particularly since they’re still her primary publisher. What I don’t know, and didn’t find on a quick search, is the Bull viewpoint with respect to “pirate” editions of her work. Some authors attempt to police this sort of thing as strongly as they can; others regard it as either relatively harmless or potentially beneficial.
is anyone reading the web serial she has, sort of a paranormal criminal minds? Shadowunit.org
@Kristina and any others,
My library system seems to skip out on much of this genre, but the home page for the system has a “other resources” tab that will take you to a statewide search, allowing you to get a copy from one of the other systems…I have used this a stupid number of times to get some of the good stuff that is apparently too avant-garde (*snicker*) for BFE, Central MN.
@John C. Bunnell – Thank you so much re the info re EpubBud. Before I go mentioning ebooks again, what are some things I should be looking for to make sure the author is being recompensed?
The primary clue about EPubBud is that its content comes primarily/exclusively from the site’s patrons/members. A legitimate e-bookstore licenses its content from the publisher or other rights-holder (Amazon, Powells, B&N, Fictionwise, etc.)—or in some cases (Lulu, for instance) allows the rights-holder to post and distribute their own work.
The front end copy on EPubBud suggests that they started out with the intent to be a Lulu-like operation specializing in kids’ books, and it looks as if they may still have a modest amount of genuine self-published original content available. But most sites set up as “file sharing” venues, where the content comes from individuals uploading copyrighted content that they didn’t themselves create, end up hosting vast amounts of unlicensed material.
Now, this is not to say that authors never give away their work for free; some make a point of doing so, usually within certain constraints (see particularly Cory Doctorow), and others participate in projects like the Baen Free Library. But in nearly all cases, legitimate free content will be hosted either on the author’s own Web site, on a site linked from their own site, or on their publisher’s Web site.
I bought this book on impulse after reading this review and I am LOVING it! There are no words, it’s just great 🙂
A+++
This is one of my favorite books of all time and has been ever since I checked it out of the Forest Grove Library years ago when it was still out of print. I remember how thrilled I was when I found a used copy in Powell’s and got one of my very own. Although it’s not a romance, check out Emma Bull’s Finder if you can. Another one of my all-time faves.
I finally got my hands on “Welcome to Bordertown”, the new collection (squeee!!!) and the two introductions, one by Holly Black and one by Terri Windling, have lovely descriptions of the birth of urban fantasy. I was going to quote stuff but they are really better read in their entirety.