Just finished Spinning Silver

[conuly]

I enjoyed it except for three things that keep bugging me. (As always, having a few details bug me is better than perfection.)

1. There is no way either of our happy endings is going to be so happy without a lot of therapy, which they won't have because this is medieval not-Russia (or maybe medieval not-Poland) (EDIT: It's medieval not-Lithuania! or maybe just regular Lithuania) and that hasn't been invented yet. One of the two husbands has spent his entire life carefully cultivating a profound lack of interest in anything, for his own safety, and I don't see him unlearning that any time soon. (Plus, he's no longer immune to the magic crown, is he? Yeah.) The other seriously needs to learn to talk to people, and the sooner, the better.

2. So many new POV characters. Just when you think you've got them all, there's a new one, and the transitions aren't always clearly marked.

3. POTATOES. Now, we don't have an exact date on this story, but I feel fairly confident that it predates Columbus discovering America, which means there should be no potatoes. And I can't even edit them to "turnips" as I usually do because our characters spend time cutting out and planting the eyes. And this universe is too obviously our universe but with magic, so we can't ignore it either!

But, you know, those things are small potatoes. (Which are all in Peru at this time in history, I'm just pointing out again.)

Comments

[hannah]

Potatoes are the crown jewel of the New World, bar none.

Earlier today I was talking to someone about pre-Columbus Italian cuisine, before the tomato and potato were introduced. It threw him, because he'd never had reason to consider what it would've been like. I hear you on not being able to ignore that sort of thing - at one point I got thrown out of an alt-Greece book because someone used "inches" with no indication they'd ever been conquered by England.

[conuly]

People deride the potato so much, even though they eat it, but I keep pointing out that the nutrition of the average European improved dramatically after it became widely available. If you have potatoes - which grow all over the place, even in climates that aren't well suited for rice or wheat - and you have some source of milk, then your diet is very close to nutritionally complete. Add some dried beans/pulses, or a grain, or cabbage (or any other green) and it will be.

[mount_oregano]

Another reason potatoes improved the diet of the average European is that it's hard for marauding armies to steal potatoes or set fire to them if they're underground. When the soldiers moved on, the locals weren't faced with starvation.

But potatoes came to Europe after 1492. Also sunflowers. Tobacco. Turkeys. Chocolate!

[conuly]

Tomatoes, squashes, most beans, maize, peppers, peanuts, cotton... I mean, these are agricultural staples, all around the world.

Another reason potatoes improved the diet of the average European is that it's hard for marauding armies to steal potatoes or set fire to them if they're underground. When the soldiers moved on, the locals weren't faced with starvation.

Root crops are also harder to tax, which may be a mixed blessing - no taxation means a more limited, less centralized state, and that's both good and bad.

[ioplokon]

It's really amazing how few people know that potatoes, tomatoes, etc. aren't indigenous to Europe (& on the other end, I have trouble remembering that like, mangoes aren't from South America)

Also, it wasn't til I was working in Europe & had the chance to travel to the UK that I learned that there, turnip= rutabaga.

All this to say, root vegetables are an absolute menace for writers striving for cultural accuracy...

[conuly]

Well, turnips and rutabagas are both brassicas, aren't they?

Back to potatoes, one person responded to me one with "What, are you saying that there weren't any potatoes in Ireland or Russia in the Middle Ages!?" and... yes, that is precisely what I just told you, sir.

[archangelbeth]

Someone needs to get UrsulaV to read this book, if there is a chance of a Potato Rant resulting from it. >:)

[conuly]

Why not just have them eat quinoa and chocolate while we're at it!

[archangelbeth]

All the tasty stuff! There were, uh, traders!

[conuly]

Indeed there were, but....

[archangelbeth]

*handwaves like a hummingbird*

[conuly]

Which also do not frequent Europe.

[archangelbeth]

Unless they get blown really off-course... >_>

(...invasion of Europe by pixies riding stolen hummingbirds!)

[conuly]

I... I don't think hummingbirds are that cooperative. They're pretty scary.

[archangelbeth]

It's what comes of having a sword on your face!

...which now gets me thinking of pixies with barbed-wire bridles on their hummingbird mounts, yanking them into formation, like little flying evil stallions who hate each other desperately. Maybe stick blinkers on them so they can't see each other so well!

[conuly]

Hummingbirds also need to eat, like, a lot. I don't think they could survive in this scenario.

[archangelbeth]

They feast upon the blood of their enemies! They're vampire hummingbirds!

That's why the pixies go invading everywhere. Their blood-drinking hummingbirds take a lot of work.

Sent from my iPhone

[landofnowhere]

It's been a while since I read that book, but how can you tell when it's set? I don't think I was trying to figure out the time period when I was reading it...

[conuly]

Somebody's father or grandfather went on a Crusade and also there's talk about how the Khan's sons are actively warring all around the place.

The last Crusade in our world was in the 1200s, and the Mongol Invasions were done by 1405. Even allowing for a little bit of alternate history, there should be no potatoes.

(Actually, with those two bookends I feel safe in saying that it takes place sometime in the 1200s or 1300s, probably smack in the middle of that range because nobody seems to be worried about the Black Death.)

[landofnowhere]

Cool!

[flikkeren]

I liked the book, but the ending kinda bothered me. I wanted better for Mireym and Irina than those d-bags... it all just seemed too pat and tied with a bow, and very unrealistic that it was being sold as "happy," as you say.

I like to think the potatoes got there by ~magic~

[conuly]

1. YES THAT. Not that I don't have a little bit of sympathy for Tsar Whoever... but let's be fair, that's mostly because I enjoyed his narrative voice. I wouldn't want to be married to him.

2. They did not.

[hamsterwoman]

Yes, totally to #1! Miryem/Staryk Lord is actually the more baffling one to me, because they had like six months to talk while rebuilding the Staryk lands? And she was still totally blindsided by the marriage plans. Not a great track record of communication! (I loved the book very much but the choices Novik made in writing the main relationship makes no sense to me.)

I was OK with the POVs until Magreta showed up -- that was one too many. (Also, I would've appreciated not having them switch mid-chapter. That was needlessly confusing.)

I do think it's meant to be Lithuania, but I don't think it's following any sort of Earth timeline (which only had a kingdom of Lithuania at 1251-1263), so maybe it was post-Columbus? My sense was it was taking place during the general Pale of Settlement era, i.e. ~18th century. I see your point about the Crusades, and it does seem like Novik was maybe going for the 1200s/1300s with the kingdom of Lithvas. But I also thought it was maybe set after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, because of a reference to someone's relative leaving what sounded like a southern-climate country. I expect it's all a giant mishmash of centuries, because fantasy.

[conuly]

Well, there've always been expulsions and pogroms of Jews, and damn if I can figure out why. (Okay, I have a few theories, but they all reflect badly on humans, so.)

[lassarina]

The transitions of POV bugged the hell out of me, too.

[conuly]

It was just so clumsily done. Although now that I think about it, none of her other works seem to switch POV much at all, so maybe she's still learning how to do it.

[staranise]

I took the decor in the palace to make it more 1600s or 1700s, like Uprooted, partly because potatoes are such a known tell of the Columbian exchange. Because ripping open small rooms to install huge gilt-covered fireplaces has a lot of resonances to Alexander the Great in Russia forcing his court to become Europeanized. Although.... that doesn't explan the Khan.

[conuly]

You'd think potatoes would be a dead giveaway, but they're not. A lot of people don't know they come from the Americas. The same goes for all other nightshades - mystery tomatoes and peppers and sometimes even tobacco pop up all over the place where/when they don't belong.

[conuly]

Also sometimes maize, but usually because people hear "corn" and don't think it through.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

It’s medieval not-Lithuania

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

And I promise you that the whole area, including Russia, Poland, and Lithuania was like that until at least eighteenth century.

[conuly]

Yeah, I can believe it.