A complex tale set on an imagined world, reflecting on our violently shared past and present
Taking place on an alternate planet but one with problems all too familiar to our own, A Soldier In The Borderlands mixes low fantasy with science fiction to grapple with ecological and psychological issues. Arwen Spicer brings forth descriptions of great sensitivity as well as scenes of gruesome cruelty in what is set to be the first book in a series.
Our introduction to the world of Uramésha is made through a regiment of juvenile soldiers. They are led by 14-year-old Tan, who turns out to be our protagonist. The members’ allegiance to their cause—whatever that is—seems ambivalent. It turns out that they are cadets training to serve the highly militarized and cloistered society of the Citadel, whose warrior culture even includes ritualistic human sacrifice.
Piece by piece, we make out the young cadets’ origin. They were not born in the Citadel but were collected as spoils from battles with other collectives and tribes, none of whom are nearly as militarized as the Citadel itself. This child levy, reminiscent of the Ottoman Janissaries, provides the basis for the story’s psychological conflict, as Tan is forced to confront the truths and lies on which he has been brought up.
Later on, when Tan finds himself among the outsiders, his once-perceived enemies, we learn that these neighbors have formed an alliance against the Citadel as the war is about to escalate to terrible heights. They are driven by dire circumstances, on an Uramésha which has already been effectively turned into a desert, possibly because of the Citadel’s previous war methods. Spicer, however, does a great job in not presenting the two sides as simply black and white, thus maintaining interest for the developing nuance in the next books.
Even though the technical focus is on psychology, the book does not lack subtle, if simple, worldbuilding. Uramésha is dominated by a Buddhism-flavored religion, whose public calls to prayer recall Islam, while the language of its verses recalls the King James Bible. Adding to these, its core concept of oneness recalls the religious musings of William Blake, which may be the reason, or part of the reason, he is credited in the Acknowledgements section. Also reminiscent of William Blake’s style is the book’s attractive and striking cover art by Xavier Agguire.
Spicer is capable of flashes of syntactical brilliance, like in this little sentence which needs no context for its classic fantasy vibe to be felt: “The Bridge roared above him, red and gold, like Death and the Way.”
If the job of science fiction is to imagine worlds and ways of thinking in some way alien to our own, then A Soldier In The Borderlands is definitely not science fiction. It is too relatable, too historically informed, too not fiction, but that is exactly where its effectiveness lies. The troubles on Uramésha hit so close to Earth that it feels as if the future of our world and Spicer’s fictional one are tied together.
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