Dave Wolverton passed away on January 14, 2022. This is just a tribute to one of my favorite novels of his.
I recently commented on what I think was one my favorite stories, "After a Lean Winter," and what made it so brilliant.
The Golden Queen is a science fantasy. It would be easy for a long-time reader of fantasy just to accept this as a somewhat traditional fantasy with some of the usual oddities such as a talking bear, but then we have two moons. The novel opens this way
"Veriasse could taste the scent of vanquishers in the crsip mountain air. Beneath the sweaty odor of the horses, lying deep below the aroma of pine needles and leaf mold, he could barely detect the acrid scent of dronon vanquisher's stomach acids. This was the third time he had caught that scent in as many days, but this time it was closer than in the past."
Really, this could go either way in reading it: fantasy or science fiction. But the heavy emphasis on scents has a distinct odor of biology. Straddling the divide between science and fantasy creates a beautiful friction, a paradox of sorts, a broad palette of samples to taste. We inhabit two genres simultaneously. Just when you settle into the fantasy of it, the text will either imply or call up the science of what's happening.
But the most powerful aspect is the characters themselves. And the story takes off in the inn in Clere, the characters giving one another a hard time in a playful manner (notice how the barbs fly off at everyone, sometimes multiple people at once):
"Nooo, no!" Father Heany threw up his hands as if to ward off a blow. "You can't go trying to unload your ugly niece onto the boy," the priest said. "That would be a sin. She's a nice enough girl, but with those buck teeth--"
"You don't say!" Seamus frowned in mock horror. "You daren't talk about my niece that way."
"I will," the priest said. "God agrees with me on this point, I'm sure. The girl has tusks as dangerous as any wild boar's. Now, if Gallen is looking for a nice young woman, I'm sure others could be found."
Maggie got up from her churn. The cream had hardened to butter, and she could no longer turn the crank. Her face and arms were covered with perspiration. Gallen figured it must be midnight, yet she'd been working since before sunrise. She stood wearily, put a heavy log into the fire, then sat at a nearby table with a sigh that said, "Ah, to hell with it."
"Well, there is Maggie here," Seamus said with a wink, and Gallen saw that he'd been planning this all along. With Gallen and Maggie sitting so close together, it was a perfect opportunity to torment them both. No one in town could have missed the glances they exchanged, and Gallen had just about decided that Maggie was the one for him. "Now, Maggie has it all--she has her wit, she's a charmer, and she works as hard as three people."
Maggie also gives Gallen a hard time of it, too. However, the playfulness gets challenged when the beautiful Golden Queen herself arrives to send our
heroes off on a journey, looking for a guide or an armed escort who can
also defend. However, though Gallen shows himself worthy as a guide, he's rebuffed when he inquires about her name. An act not lost on Maggie.
Forgive me. I love Orrick the bear, too, but I can be less specific about that. Perhaps it is just our innate desire to befriend animals, but Farland does seem to capture some of the beariness of Orrick in a few deft gestures such as his voracious appetite, lapping milk from a bowl, and mysterious behavior like this:
"God be with you, for I shall not," the bear said.... Gallen shivered at the sound of Orick's cryptic farewell.
There's much to love. It's almost as wonderful as knowing the man himself.
![After a Lean Winter by [David Farland]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519v-sBpaJL.jpg)
![Barbarians by [Farland, David]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51rekR2s7JL.jpg)
![Ashes and Starlight by [Farland, David]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/417jrXJvmML.jpg)
