Classics That Really Are: War For The Oaks

I've been trying to remind myself of the "classics" of the SFF field off and on, picking up and reading (or re-reading) books various folks name as influential.

And I've generally been disappointed; so few genre "classics" really hold up to the test of time. Some of that isn't the author's fault: technology that changes our everyday lives are hard to predict, and the field's shift to character-focused fiction has left a lot of older idea-based fiction feeling flat, stilted and hollow. Some of it is authorial choice: an author's unacknowledged sexism and racism is crystal clear in 2020, or their attempt to throw racial prejudice into hard relief to shock the reader of their day is misery-inducing in the era of #Ican'tbreathe.

I just finished Emma Bull's War For The Oaks, released in 1987, and (with the exception of a phone booth and a lack of cell phones), it could have been published today. The female protag is fiery, vulnerable, strong, hungry and sharp. It's set in a diverse, urban Minneapolis the protagonist loves fiercely, which is a little heart-tearing in June 2020.

There's an incoming War between the Light and Dark Queens (meh) but the Light Queen is hardly a sweetheart -- these are the Fae you don't want to meet -- and the Queen of Darkness is just worse. And our protag is almost literally roped in, required to be part of this war as a mortal, with a twist or two her bodyguard has tried to set in motion. The relationship between the protag and her captor/bodyguard develops along fairly standard romance lines, but it's background to a lot of interesting action, and he ends up earning her trust through a necessarily steep road.

It could have used a sensitivity reader, given the number of characters of color in it. A few lines made me twitch. A reader who has more familiarity with urban culture might not be as generous as this rural white woman; I'm not always aware of my own blinders. (The antagonist is a shapeshifter, often turns into a wolf-sized dog, and a paranormal person of color, of never-clarified racial background. The (white) protag and her (white) friend refer to him as a dog on more than one occasion. He finds it amusing. Is that a problem? In context of the narrative, it didn't seem to be, but it still made me twitch).

I think the antagonist and two other characters could have been better developed (i.e., less white-feeling.)  An annoyed character makes a racial jibe to try to dig at another character, and later ends up with a lover of color, and that... didn't sit well. Although it did define that character, and Ghods knows those women exist today. There was one awkward racial moment that felt all too real, where a Black character thought he was being set up for mockery by a largely white group. The scene required it, and I think Bull handled it well enough. 

Blessings be, there are no characters of color who exist just to evoke emotion and then be killed. There's no rape.

I'm talking about a book that was published 33 years ago. I've seen worse issues in books published this year, so I'd say it's holding up pretty well. 

There are some heart-pounding moments of excitement.  The stakes are clear, the twists are generally not visible ahead of time, the protag's inner issues exist and color her perceptions but are not constantly all over the page. She works with people instead of working on them, and I found that probably the most delightful aspect of her character. She's a team builder of sorts and we get to see some of how she does that.

So, yeah, there's a reason War For the Oaks is called a pioneering work in urban fantasy. It won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. (Allow me to boggle for a moment at the realization that this was her FIRST book. OMG). 

Take it for a spin and tell me what you think.