“The Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS, pronounced “sphinx”)a is a yearly competition to recognize, honor, and celebrate the talent and creativity present in the indie community. We are a sister competition to both SPFBO and SPSFC, and we highlight greatness in the novella format in all areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.).” – From the official SFINCS website.
Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole.
REVIEW
Somewhat of a slow burn, Of All the Stars by Kris Madigan is an exquisitely written secondary-world fantasy that brings a mythic quest structure into the twenty-first century through its exploration of queerness and the self. I feel as though I’ve used this comparison a bit too often this SFINCS, but I’d recommend Of All the Stars to fans of Your Blood and Bones, Ursula LeGuin, Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter, and Peter S. Beagl
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Magic is disappearing from the world and a young woman named Kosma is determined to uncover why. A scholar and a mage, Kosma is set apart from the rest of her people, dwelling in an isolated tower where she spends her days learning about a world she has yet to truly experience. When she uses magic to transport herself–and her companion fox, Nipa–outside the safety of the tower in order to investigate what’s happening, she’s thrust into a bustling market town far from the lands she knows. But the city in which Kosma finds herself is suspicious of magic and Kosma is quickly arrested and imprisoned. It is only through the help of Avaline, a respected city guard, and Avaline’s companion Mikael, that Kosma and Nipa are freed. Determined to find out why magic is faltering, but desperate to return North to her home, Kosma resumes her quest with the help of her new companions.
Of All the Stars by Kris Madigan boasts the kind of prose I’m always hungry for. Its consistency of style and attention to tone will make this one easily accessible to a trad audience nervous about editorial polish, and its contemplative pace along with its distillation of capital-F Fantasy themes and structures gives it a literary feel that may well draw in readers new to the genre but who have a love of folk and fairy tales. One of the most remarkable features of Madigan’s prose is her command of a lengthy sentence. While some contemporary fantasy praised for its lush writing tends to come off as purple and (to be blunt) vacuous, Madigan wields her pen with equal parts intent and elegance. Of All the Stars is a lucid read–easy to follow and able to be enjoyed for its linework alone.
The characterization in Of All the Stars is simple yet critical to the story’s progression. Kosma and Avaline are truly the stars of the show, with both Nipa and Mikael serving in supporting roles. While the style of the novella may initially come off as distant to many readers, we’re rooted in Kosma’s POV quite intensely, and it’s Kosma and her developing sense of self who drives and inform the plot. Additional characters are sparse–so sparse, even the busy scenes of the market, or Kosma’s start in her home city, feel largely empty. Rather than coming off as a flaw, it instead intensifies the sense of Kosma as someone quite lonely, whose separateness from others must be mended as the story progresses. Kosma and Aveline’s growing closeness, which works its way from distrust to reliance to affection, sits at the heart of the story. Gradual and gentle, the development of their relationship parallels Kosma’s physical journey across a frigid landscape.
“She will reach for the stars one day, they say, with a head full of knowledge and a longing for the wilderness, and she will pull them down when she returns.”
A slow but steady pace suits what Madigan is doing well. All the same, during its middle section in particular there’s quite a bit of repetition that could have been tightened to make for a more powerful reading experience. Alongside this issue, key events (such as, for example, the discovery of a body) occasionally happen off-page, with the audience told in retrospect that they occurred. A little of this is sometimes fine–it might be that nothing is lost leaving some experiences to reader imagination–but given the short page count and the impact of certain events on Kosma and Avaline’s development, it wasn’t as effective here as it could have been. In terms of the novella’s structure and plotting, I was also left at the end hoping for a bit more of a solid conclusion to what was happening–a payoff for all the build that Madigan creates in the first two thirds of the story.
Of All the Stars was a treat to read, immediately pulling me into Kosma’s world with its distinct and well-crafted prose and its slightly romantic (in the nineteenth-century sense) setting and style. I get the sense with this one that there’s room for a sequel, and I personally hope Madigan will return not only to the setting, but to Kosma and Avaline’s story. Of All the Stars is well worth a look!
