In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

I can't believe I forgot to review this book! I read it several weeks ago, as one of the last few I had to go before casting my Hugo ballot, and quite enjoyed it. Somehow, however it never made it on to my review backlog, and I only just realized it. Hopefully, I haven't forgotten too much about it.

In Other Lands was nominated in the new YA category. I had not read anything by this author before. What I got out of it was thoroughly enjoyable, even though there were moments where things rang a little off, or didn't altogether hang together. Still, they were all flaws I could forgive, and enjoy the rest of the book. (I think I read later that this was somethinf the author wrote to distract herself from other projects, and was writing to make herself happy, and yeah, this reads very much like that, and that seems like a great way to go.)

Elliott Schafer finds himself on a field trip in an actual field, but with a wall none of the other kids can see. Since he dislikes all the other kids, he's amenable when he's asked to climb over it and join a magical camp for children. But not so much a summer camp, an army camp. Elliott decides to join the much-less prestigious camp for future counselors of the military leaders, although it seems apparent many of the new people wish he'd just go away. Elliott is used to that, though, and stays.

Almost as soon as I met Elliott, it felt like he was Eustace Clarence Scrubb who stayed Eustace Clarence Scrubb (from some of the later Narnia books), although over time you come to learn that Elliott has laudable qualities as well. He's just stubborn, prickly, kind of a jerk to be around, and vastly emotionally unintelligent - until a few occasions where he is preternaturally emotionally intelligent, and those didn't quite jibe, but I still liked what Brennan was trying to do with those moments. They just didn't...quite fit right.

Let me give you an example. This book spans years of Elliott going home in the summer and coming back in the fall. As many books like this do, absolutely. One of his relationships falls apart, and Elliott is upset, but emotionally enough aware to know, in great detail, that it is not anyone's responsibility to love him back just because he loves them, and that that is putting his shit on them, and that it really is a situation where it is no one's fault.

This makes me want to cheer, it really does! We see this kind of maturity and emotional intelligence so rarely! But then Elliott doesn't get, for most of the book, that one character really is his friend. I mean, really, really is his friend, because he doesn't understand actions at all. That these both co-exist in the same character? It strains credulity a bit, but I also do like those moments where Elliott is emotionally mature, and understands these sorts of things. Even though it doesn't seem likely.

However, I didn't need this book to be perfect, and the occasional feelings of discrepancy were small next to the pleasures - Elliott's general pacifism, and the way he bullheadedly tries to steer this entire new society into patterns that disdain militarism. The treatment of sexuality, and Elliott's emergence as a bisexual character without shame or worry - although it also strained credulity that Elliott could be very attentive to some things, yet not notice a particular attraction for that length of time. I also liked that the queer characters didn't have to do it all through subtext and not quite acting on anything!

(Some of these things sound like things that, in a much better world, would be bare minimum things, but some of them are still so rare as to be almost revolutionary.) In the long run, this was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it a lot. It wasn't near the top of my ballot in the YA category, but it was refreshing, enjoyable and flawed. Much like Elliott, I guess.