Thistlefoot Review

Surprisingly, I put a book that is not only recent, but that received popular and critical acclaim on my reading list.  More surprisingly, I got around to reading it before too many years passed.  Most surprisingly, I think it managed to live up to its hype.  The reviewers who compared it to Neil Gaiman books like The Ocean at the End of the Lane were dead-accurate, and Thistlefoot makes an excellent addition to the modern folktale/fairy tale genre.

Unlike urban fantasy, with its invocation of hidden or external sources of magic, the modern fairy tale/folktale has magical elements that all along, in plain sight, as a normal and natural part of the world, even thought they take place in a modern setting with which many of us do not tend to associate “magic.”  In that sense, I’m not certain that magic is even the right word to describe it; it might be better to describe them as supernatural elements.  It takes a certain style and approach to render this believable, which is why we don’t see many stories that fit into this category.  Nethercott manages the task, although the supernatural elements in Thistlefoot are sufficiently overt to challenge suspension of disbelief at times.

As you can probably imagine, given much of what I read, the portions of this that were told like a folktale, from the perspective of the living house and about the “witch,” Baba Yaga, were my favorites, evocative of real folktales and digging with great insight into how and why such stories arise.  I don’t think many authors would be able to capture that kind of insight and depth of understanding of a culture and how a culture’s stories function, so I give plaudits to Nethercott for her accomplishment and the immense research that she must have done to give Thistlefoot such a convincing and immersive feel.

What I tend to most enjoy in books, at least fiction, are the magic moments, the moments when people transcend themselves, rise to the occasion, perform great feats.  Thistlefoot had few (if any) of those moments, but that’s alright; it’s not that kind of story, and they would have diminished from the tone the story is taking.  It’s not gritty, per se, but like the traditional tales from which it draws inspiration and which it incorporates, there is a certain earthiness to it.  It’s why I don’t entirely agree with categorizing these sorts of modern folktales/fairy tales as fantasy; they don’t evoke the same sense of wonder that I consider a key part of the fantasy genre.

This is not the kind of book where you should necessarily expect to like the characters, and it’s not the kind of book that you should read for escapist qualities.  It doesn’t pull its punches, for all it is no grimdark piece.  That’s not usually what I look for, but I still enjoyed Thistlefoot.  It worked; all of its elements were integrated smoothly and contributed to a sense that this is a story that is true to a human experience.

I can’t promise that you’ll enjoy Thistlefoot.  It appeals to a particular taste, and is not the kind of story I usually seek out; I suspect that if you are seeking after traditional fantasy you will be disappointed with this piece.  Then again, you’ve found this site, and Thistlefoot has many things we seek here at IGC Publishing: history, mythology, immersive storytelling, and tight, evocative language.  I think you should give Thistlefoot a read soon.