Carrie Vaughn’s Bannerless is simply lovely

The Philip K. Dick award will be announced March 30, 2018, in Seattle, WA. The award is presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction originally published in paperback form in the United States. This post is the sixth in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Philip K. Dick awards. The other nominees are Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, Revenger by Alastair Reynolds, The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt, After the Flare by Deji Bryce Olukotun, All Systems Red by Martha Wells, and The Book of Etta by Meg Elison.

Carrie Vaughn’s Bannerless is without question the most simply lovely book I’ve read this year. More than anything, it reminded me of listening to stories of my grandparents growing up on farms in America’s heartland – which makes sense, since this is that kind of story (minus the murder). If Mad Max: Fury Road is an adrenaline-filled monstertruck drive through a desert, Bannerless is a peaceful stroll through a quiet farming village (plus a murder, maybe).

Some reviewers have criticized Bannerless as being rather plot-light, and I don’t disagree. I just don’t think that’s to this story’s detriment. It’s light on plot in part just because that’s the nature of the setting and the story. In part, too, it may be plot-light in order to better showcase the lovely setting and the simple characters – to provide the “slice of life” look into this post-apocalyptic setting Vaughn has so skillfully created for us.Vaughn is a multi-award-winning and prolific author, and she’s clearly comfortable flouting writing convention in favor of writing in her own voice. The pacing in this book (from the narrator as well as through dialogue) does so much to set in stone the feel of the story and setting; Vaughn should be lauded for her skill in this regard. She uses simple techniques to enhance the reader’s experience, using non-standard sentence structures, sentence fragmentation, and non-standard list formation to stick to long, often complex sentences without ever letting the voice grow repetitive or dry.

Often, in fact, I found myself noticing the cadence in Vaughn’s voice more than anything else. One of my favorite examples of this comes early in the narrative:

Here, you begin to see how Vaughn’s voice has a distinct rhythm to it – not unlike that of a practiced storyteller ensuring their audience is engaged. Were the narrative too dense, this cadence would be compromised or lost completely, buried under the weight of the narrative. Particularly for this post-apocalyptic setting, the feeling of an oral tradition is most welcome here.

As a main character, Enid is wonderful. Her curiosity is catching, and her viewpoint (as the narrative primarily follows her experience) is insightful without being overbearing.

The other characters in the narrative run the gamut from idyllicaly charming, to worldly and experienced, to absolutely maddening. To Vaughn’s credit, even the absolute extremes of her characters never distract from the flow of her story – serving only to enhance and enliven the world of Haven.

Without a doubt, this is one of the most well-developed, fleshed-out, and living post-apocalyptic settings I’ve ever come across. The rules Vaughn’s society sets up are internally consistent and realistic given their context. More importantly, the pain of living in the world of Bannerless isn’t impossibly dire (like some post-apocalypses), nor is it sacrificial of humanity in favor of society. The things missing from the world “before” constitute a sweet note of wistfulness that carries throughout the narrative, more than anything, and I am grateful to Vaughn for believing in humanity’s strength enough to allow its fundamental natures (the beauty as well as the dark, the brains as well as the brawn, the poetry as well as the engineering) to survive her apocalypse hand-in-hand.

I will admit to one bone to pick with this book. Somehow, three entirely contradictory formats for establishing where in the timeline a chapter takes place are used throughout the book. It may be a small complaint, but I couldn’t look past it.