- ISBN13: 9780765300348
- Condition: New
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Product Description
Acclaimed by critics and readers on its first publication in 1987, winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel, Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks is one of the novels that has defined modern urban fantasy.
Eddi McCandry sings rock and roll. But her boyfriend just dumped her, her band just broke up, and life could hardly be worse. Then, walking home through downtown Minneapolis on a dark night, she finds herself drafted into an invisible war between the faerie folk. Now, more than her own survival is at risk—and her own preferences, musical and personal, are very much beside the point.
By turns tough and lyrical, fabulous and down-to-earth, War for the Oaks is a fantasy novel that’s as much about this world as about the other one. It’s about real love and loyalty, about real music and musicians, about false glamour and true art. It will change the way you hear and see your own daily life.
Amazon.com Review
Emma Bull’s debut novel, War for the Oaks, placed her in the top tier of urban fantasists and established a new subgenre. Unlike most of the rock & rollin’ fantasies that have ripped off Ms. Bull’s concept, War for the Oaks is well worth reading. Intelligent and skillfully written, with sharply drawn, sympathetic characters, War for the Oaks is about love and loyalty, life and death, and creativity and sacrifice.
Eddi McCandry has just left her boyfriend and their band when she finds herself running through the Minneapolis night, pursued by a sinister man and a huge, terrifying dog. The two creatures are one and the same: a phouka, a faerie being who has chosen Eddi to be a mortal pawn in the age-old war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Eddi isn’t interested–but she doesn’t have a choice. Now she struggles to build a new life and new band when she might not even survive till the first rehearsal.
War for the Oaks won the Locus Magazine award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Society Award. Other books by Emma Bull include the novels Falcon, Bone Dance (second honors, Philip K. Dick Award), Finder (a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award), and (with Stephen Brust) Freedom and Necessity; the collection Double Feature (with Will Shetterly); and the picture book The Princess and the Lord of Night. –Cynthia Ward
Marc Ruby™ @ 10:44 pm
“War for the Oaks” is the story of Eddi McCandry, who starts the story out playing guitar in Minneapolis bars. Coming home from the breakup of her last band she finds herself drafted into the oldest of wars. The conflict waged by the Fay of the Seelie court, the house of light, against the creatures of darkness and the queen of night herself. Her part is to be that mortal who enables the elves to kill each other, so that the battle will have a final conclusion.
Emma Bull’s elves are not the sweet folk that inhabit child’s fairy tales. Instead they are the harsh, often cruel yet beautiful folk that frightened our ancestors years ago. Their manners have no human equivalent and they are cold, passionate, harsh, tender, noble and terrible almost at random. Into this world Eddi finds her way, guided by the whimsical Phouka who can be dog or man at will, and who dresses himself from an invisible closet of finery.
In between the battles and conflicts Eddi assembles a new band composed of her close friend Carla on drums, Dan Rochelle on keyboards, mumbling Hedge on bass and Willy Silver on lead guitar. Together they become part of the magic and form the base for Eddi’s own powers, which she has acquired from her new place in Faerie. But it will take all the band’s power, all that the Seelie court has to offer, and a bit of pure luck besides to win the battle for Minneapolis. Especially when nothing is quite what it seems. For if the Fay never lie, they still can twist the truth to the quick.
“War for the Oaks” is considerably more than a fantasy tale. It is also a fine romance. The elves understand the form of love, but they have little grasp of the content. Human feelings are a world apart from them. Eddi McCandry must confront them over this weakness and teach several of them the significance and power of human feelings. This is romance without ever being exaggerated or cloying, and is what makes the novel so compelling.
Emma Bull is not a prolific author. She has, I believe, four novels to her credit and a fair number of short stories. Perhaps, because of her pacing, her work is carefully polished. Settings and characters breathe with remarkable life, and her narrative has tremendous flow. She draws equally well from legend and her own creativity. Her only flaw in “War for the Oaks” is that she is not quite sure of herself in her climactic scenes, which causes some slight confusion. For a novelist in her early phases this is a mere quibble. “War for the Oaks” is one of the best fantasy stories of its time, and has already become a classic of the genre.
Stephanie Zuercher @ 12:02 am
I read this book about three years ago, back when it was still out of print, and I was very excited when I heard it was being reprinted. I can’t exactly decide whether I like the cover, but it’s certainly better than the old one.
Eddi McCandry is the guitar player for a lousy band. They’re not really going anywhere, and neither, particularly, is her life. One night, everything changes: the band splits up, she breaks up with the lead singer, and she gets chosen to be the mortal talisman for a war between the Seelie and Unseelie fey.
This is all okay, though, because she gets to put another band together, and they’re good. Really good. Especially the other guitarist . . . and let’s not forget her bodyguard, the phouka . . . Oh, yeah, she needs a bodyguard because the Unseelie fey are trying to kill her, in between band rehearsals and battles . . .
One thing that really made me laugh about this book was the setting. It’s the eighties. Eddi’s clothing, which is REALLY COOL by the standards of the book, sounds like something off of Saved by the Bell.
This is definitely a book for fantasy-punk geeks: the music mentioned includes bands such as Boiled in Lead (Celtic Rock) and David Bowie (self-explanatory); the fashions, albeit eighties, are the same; and the general demeanor of the book is rather Borderlands-y. (Which makes sense, considering Emma Bull was one of the co-creators of the original Borderlands series.)
However, even if you aren’t a fantasy-punk geek, you can still read it. It’s engaging and has very likable characters; the plot takes a couple of not-precisely-as-expected turns; the description of the fey is interesting and fits fairly well with the expected fantasy fey-canon (she didn’t try to rewrite the Sidhe as bloodsucking ugly vampires, for example).
So, to end, elements of fantasy, realism, eighties-punk, romance, and humanity make it accessible and readable by anyone. Even those who don’t remember the eighties.
Patrick Shepherd @ 1:58 am
There are no dragons here, but you won’t miss them. Instead you’ll find a superb tale of faerie, music, and romance. Emma Bull and Steven Brust (also a well known fantasy author) were at one point two components of the band Cats Laughing, and Bull uses her musical knowledge and experience to great advantage here. Her descriptions of practice sessions and performances will resonate with any music fan, and she skillfully weaves this into a major component of her tale of Eddi, selected by the Seelie to invoke the boon of mortality on the battles of the faerie world. To protect Eddi until the time of the battle, a phouka is assigned to guard her, at times a formidable dog, at other times a whimsical human trickster. Though quite predictable, there is a slowly building romance between the two, and this defines both characters to a depth that is rare in fantasy, as each impacts on and reacts to the other, and wind their way into the reader’s heart.
The world of faerie is seen at a distance (even though the major characters are directly involved in some of the faerie battles), never fully explained or examined in detail, and this very indistinctness adds flavor, a bit of mystery, and charm to what is really a story of and about some of our deepest emotions. The final battle between Eddi and the Queen of Air and Darkness is extraordinarily different, drawing on the ‘magical’ emotional state that sometimes occurs between the makers and hearers of music, rather than swords, spells, talismans, or some hidden bit of arcane knowledge so common to the climax of most fantasy.
Different, powerful, skillfully told, this book is a charmer.
Anonymous @ 3:32 am
Eddi McCandry’s boyfriend–an unrepentantly immature creep–ruined their band and drove her to walk out. Disgusted and needing something new and exciting, Eddi makes the mistake of walking home alone in Minneapolis on a dark night.
The world changes dramatically for Eddi who discovers she is gifted and Sighted — and that the Faerie need her to give a tangible mortality to the war between the Seelie and Unseelie. What ensues is a whirlwind mix of laughter, fear, rage, jealousy, regret, romance and courage in which Eddi discovers how to truly Make Music, faces the Queen of Faerie and the Dark Mistress of the Unseelie, and, finally finds herself.
Foremost among an engaging cast of characters is The Phouka, Eddi’s bodyguard, pain-in-the-neck and defender; he dances the spectrum from childish to philosophical and back again, alternately infuriating and charming his charge.
The book is so vividly written it takes the reader almost no effort to envision the scenes; don’t be surprised if you catch yourself laughing out loud, wiping away tears, or feeling your pulse race. Bull is a talespinner of great skill and leads the reader in and out of the worlds of Man and Faerie as some faerie piper might lead children in dance.
This one belongs on your “Read this Now!” list. War for the Oaks is the cream of the Urban Fantasy crop
Kelly L. (www.FantasyLiterature.com) @ 5:54 am
Anyone who likes urban fantasy should go “back to basics” and pick up this defining classic of the subgenre. I’ve read several books that borrow zillions of plot elements from _War for the Oaks_, but never reach the same sort of exhilarating heights. Yeah, yeah, we all know the story: young woman wanders the city at night and meets a mysterious stranger, so on, so forth. Now sit back and see it done right!
Eddi McCandry has just quit her boyfriend’s abysmal band, and now plans to break up with the boyfriend as well. But before she gets the chance to talk to him, she gets recruited into a war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, for the heart and soul and magic of Minneapolis. You see, the Fair Folk can’t wound each other in battle unless there is a human there to lend mortality. The Seelie Court needs Eddi in order to make their sparring a war rather than a mere sport.
What follows is a romp of an adventure, as Eddi juggles her new band, Seelie matters, and two very different Faerie men. One will dazzle her with beauty and charm; the other will surprise her with courage and devotion. I disagree with the reviewers who griped about the love story. First of all, the romance is sweet and intense, and *feels real*, which means something in a world where main characters seem to fall in love solely because one of them is the male lead and the other is the female lead. The relationship unfolds naturally, and I had goosebumps on my arms and a tear in my eye when I read the stormy-night love scene. Second, the romantic subplots do a great job of showing the differences between the human mind and the Faerie psyche.
Ever notice how, in some urban fantasy novels, the faeries are just like normal people, except that they have prettier hair and don’t know how to use household appliances? This is not one of those novels. One of Emma Bull’s achievements with this novel is that she sheds some light on the way faeries think. What do faeries think of love? Why don’t they like being thanked? Using scraps of lore, Bull creates a vivid view of Faerie culture.
And along the way, she also takes us on a wild ride through the land of rock music, showing us the way a band forms, and eventually, ideally, becomes like family. She captures the exhilaration of performing music, and the magic the music evokes. And as an added bonus, Bull is pretty darn good at writing rock lyrics. I wonder if those are actual songs I could find recordings of, if I knew the name of her band.