From the science fiction author of Escapement and Mainspring comes something totally different. Green is clear a novel that Jay Lake has put a lot of heart and soul into, with carefully chosen wordings and phrasings, along with a unique story. The first in a trilogy, Green is a book that will be a welcoming read to those who’ve ever felt they didn’t belong and will be an eye-opener for those who’ve never experienced this.

Green is a girl sold by her father at a very young age and stolen from the simple world she has known and forced into a form of servitude and training. While she doesn’t know what she is being trained for at first, it is grueling, abusive, forcing her to lock away the simple memories of her father and home for protection. Her training ranges from cooking and the making of clothes, to the martial arts and the use of weapons. She soon knows she has few friends in this harsh world. Eventually she will be sold from the Pomegranate Court to become a concubine to some man she’s never met, under the orders of the Duke.

Named Emerald at the end of her training and the arrival of her “monthly courses,” she proclaims herself Green, killing the mistress who beat her for years, and escaping the confines of the court, leaving the town of Copper Downs, and fleeing back to her home, hoping for love, respect, and a place to belong. There she finds a father who doesn’t remember, and the ox Endurance – her symbol of survival – a withered, dying animal. Fate takes her back to Copper Downs, now a trained assassin, she becomes wrapped up in the political intrigue, becoming a formidable adversary to anyone stepping in her path.

A fantasy world with an oriental flavor that has gods and goddesses who are real and live with us, but at the same time are not infallible. Lake also introduces unusual creatures who live among the peoples and proudly crosses the “bestiality” line much as he did in Mainspring, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Lake should be somewhat applauded for doing this with a character who has never belonged or fitted in anywhere.

Green is a book with poetical lines and paragraph that force to the reader to take their time. This may force some to give up, but the result by the end of the book is a magical tale that is well worth the read from cover to cover.

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