A stunning science fantasy novel with a strong theme and timely and resonant message underpinning a strong character study.
Science fantasy seems to be having a moment again. The peanut butter and chocolate of the two main halves of speculative fiction are once again meeting in the middle with novels that combine the technological speculation of science fiction with the social structures, and sometimes outright magic and the unexplainable elements of fantasy. Gary K. Wolfe considers science fantasy as an SFF story that you can read as a science fiction story, a fantasy story, or both at the same time, which is as good a definition of science fantasy as you can get.
So it is with Samantha Mills The Wings Upon Her Back, Mills' first full length novel. If you have read Mills before, it is probably the story "Rabbit Test". This is rather different and shows her range. Here, Mills sets us up in the city state of Radezhda, where all of our action takes place. Long ago, five deities visited the city and uplifted the civilization of the city, ancient aliens style. The power and technology they have given the city are not completely comprehended by the residents but it is enough for them to assert their independence and defense from the rest of the world. Those gods are mostly sleeping now, leaving their mortal Voices to commune with them, occasionally get news or judgments, and contribute to the welfare of the city.
Our main character is Zenya. Although born under the auspices of the god dedicated to learning and knowledge, she has always dreamed of flying, of being a warrior. We start the novel, then, with her showing a dissident a small act of mercy, for which as a reward for her years of loyal service, both to the warriors and personally to their leader Vodaya, with being stripped of her biomechanical wings, and left to die. It's when she is found by the real revolutionaries that the plot really kicks off, as Zenya has a painful coming to terms of who she is, what she has done.
This comes to us in a narrative set in the present day, following the events of her being cast out, and in a parallel narrative, we get to see how Zenya became Winged Zemolai. Mills cleverly uses the flashback sequences in a threefold sense. First and foremost, we get the full character arc of Zenya, how and why she became the woman she was, who is both a fearless warrior with wings, and yet someone who showed that act of mercy. Second, we get to see how and why the city has strayed and moved from a path of five representatives of the various gods cooperating into the brutal authoritarian rule of Vodaya. This strand of the novel is frankly an out and out blueprint of how fascist and authoritarian societies emerge from innocuous beginnings. And third, mixing the two, we see how the toxic relationship between Zenya and Vodaya came to be, growing and flourishing in its poisonousness. This also serves as a character study of Vodaya herself, showing how a fascist leader can emerge and take power, but also, it shows just how seductive and alluring such a leader and their ideology and methods can be, especially to a young and impressionable youth such as Zenya. Seeing Vodaya use and manipulate the young Zenya is a horrifying masterclass in such psychological techniques.
The novel can be relentless at times, because in the present day narrative, Zenya has fallen with true and real revolutionaries who are seeking to stop the authoritarian tyranny that Vodaya has instituted. These are not protesters hanging up signs, this is a movement with cells, goals, and that can and will use violence to achieve their ends. Zenya really has gone from the frying pan of being the hand of Vodaya to falling in with a group that trusts her not at all but is willing to to kill and do damage in order to oppose the tyrannical rule, as well as torture, and also manipulate prisoners and those not trusted, including of course, Zenya.
But I want to go back to the science fantasy nature of this novel and explore briefly, how it fits into that context.
How can one read this in both modes? A city-state where technology-as-magic allows for biomechanical wings, and five sleeping gods whose worshipers squabble and try and interpret what their gods want to do and why, and feeling lost and forgotten, is definitely a fantasy setting if I ever heard one. The novel fits my medium stakes and "city-state fantasy" paradigm rather well - if you read the novel in a fantasy mode.
And yet this is also a science fiction novel. The technobabble of the wings refers to "ports" and there are flying boats, bombs, and even (although not really named as such) an EMP device. There is very heretical thought that the gods aren't gods at all, but rather are ancient aliens who came, gave some technology to the people of the city, but mostly now for reasons unknown, are asleep and not generally reachable on a regular basis.
There is an additional piece within the novel, a plot point/MacGuffin that becomes extremely important to the unfolding of the plot. I don't want to give it away because it becomes such an important hinge later in the novel, but the fact that it can be read either as technology or as something in a fantasy mode helps solidly that science fantasy is indeed the axis that this novel very deliberately spins around.
In the end, the world of the novel is a world where both sides do very dirty things, and neither side's hands are clean. The Wings Upon Her Back, though, grounds this all in Zenya, and thanks to the dual narratives, we slowly close the loop and fully understand Zenya. Why would she find service to the mecha god instead of "her" scholar god in the first place, how her brutal training, physically and psychologically molded her to be Vodaya's creature, and how the seeds of her (at first) mild disillusionment came to be in the first place.
But even with Zenya in the rebellion and opposing Vodaya, her toxic and disturbing relationship to her old life and her relationship with Vodaya always comes to the for, and Vodaya, besides Zenya, has staying power as the most memorable and darkly compelling aspect of the novel. Vodaya has spent years molding Zenya, and this novel could be read as a story of deprogramming. The deprogramming is twofold, first of all Zenya herself from Vodaya and her toxic methods, and the deprogramming of an entire society which has been molded to be brutal, uncompromising, fascist, and authoritarian. The novel shows that it is a painful and not easy process, and there are no simple magic bullets or answers for either. I felt strongly for Zenya especially in the flashback scenes, as Mills makes what Vodaya is doing to her plain and unmistakable.
And again, given the rise of authoritarianism around the world, and those it impacts, what Vodaya goes through feels timely and relevant.
The last part of the book, then, has in the flashback sequences Zenya taking her first flight with her wings, showing her joy at the pinnacle of her triumph as a youth, and in the present, Zenya recreating that journey, without wings, older, wiser, and irrevocably changed by her experiences. It's a potent and strong ending to a potent and strong novel. The novel is complete in one volume and there really isn't, as far as I can see, need or room for a sequel hook.
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The Math
Highlights:
- A potent and important story of authoritarianism and what it does to a society and people
- A strong science fantasy hybrid
- An unflinching look at a protagonist and the character who manipulates and molds her
You can read more about the book, and Samantha Mills, in my Six Books interview about her.
Reference: Mills, Samantha, The Wings Upon her Back [Tachyon, 2024]
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
