Review
At first glance
Farthing appears to be a
typical country house mystery - the setting is the South of
England, close to the market town of Winchester and everyone is
well spoken and properly dressed; but don't be fooled - the
storyline quickly blasts through the confines of a "cozy"
mystery to explore many themes including politics, justice and
class, but most importantly, through the vehicle of alternate
history, the nature of history itself and how we must never be
complacent about the future, because history can and does turn
on a dime, or in this case a farthing*.
Within a few pages the reader becomes aware that all is not as
it should be in England's green and pleasant land. It's 1949 and
the war is over - but it's been over since 1941 because Britain
made peace with Germany, leaving...
Beyond the Book
Jo Walton is the author of
The King's
Peace (2000),
The King's Name
(2001),
The Prize in the Game
(2002),
Tooth and Claw (2003),
Muses and Lurkers (collection, 2001)
and
Farthing. She won the John W.
Campbell Award for Best New Writer in
2002, and the World Fantasy Award for
Tooth and Claw in 2004. Her style is
to take a familiar element and pair it
with the unfamiliar in order to put a
new and interesting spin on things. For
example, in
Tooth and Claw she
mixed elements of Anthony Trollope's
Victorian society with dragons to create
a story that Booklist...
