Walking to Mercury

I picked The Fifth Sacred Thing up at a charity booksale largely as a curiosity. I had low expectations, but, after a slow start was blown away by it. Since finishing it, I've sought out the prequel and finally found a copy at a reasonable price online.

Walking to Mercury is a very different book to its predecessor (and contrary to its listing here, I would definitely recommend reading The Fifth Sacred Thing first).

Whereas the first book is set in a small utopian community in 2048 and features working magic, the fantastical elements here are very much in the background. This might be magic realist, but is mostly a straightforward realist novel with spiritual elements.

The framing device of the novel his Maya Greenwood's trek through the Himalayas to meet her sister and spread her mother's ashes. On this journey she reads assorted letters and journals ( which she has taken with her) and recalls her time in the sixties and seventies, her role in the anti-war movement and a key formative relationship.

While the epistolary elements require the usual suspension of disbelief (whose diary is so well written?) the story is compelling and the characters well drawn.

One of Starhawk's great strengths is the ability to write political discussions amongst characters which feel lived in and avoid reading like didactic exposition.

To my mind the conclusion which switches location (and explains the title) works less well, but by that point I was sufficiently engaged with the story to not mind so much.

This isn't won for SF/fantasy purists, it's largely a book about the movement against the Vietnam War and the wider political milieu of the Sixties and Seventies. If that sounds interesting and you enjoyed its predecessor, definitely check this out