An Unusual Book

I began reading The Cry of The Icemark by Stuart Hill for no other reason than I found it while browsing in the library and I will read any book about a heroic young warrior queen. It is my kryptonite.

The book begins in a very conventional way. The land inhabited by Thirrin, the young teenage girl who is soon to be queen, is unremarkable in that it follows many fantasy novels set in a fantastic version of medieval Europe, but takes a turn in that women and men are equal.

This is remarkable enough since most young adult books featuring a young heroine take pains to show how this young woman must fight against the male dominated world to prove her worth. This world just assumes that girls and women are worthy and gets on with things.

The surprise came with the introduction of the invading army that is loosely based on the empire of ancient Rome, where women are not equal and are subjugated by the men. This Empire is governed solely by men with a steep hierarchy that relies on institutionalized slavery.

So I was really impressed with the juxtaposition of these two versions of society and intrigued that a young adult book was bringing these issues up to begin with.

This book continued to be intriguing with its blend of the traditional fantasy genre with werewolves, vampires, ghosts, witches and more. Garth Nix has blended some paranormal ideas into some of his books, but this is a much larger world with the paranormal creatures each living in their own monarchies and following medieval traditions.

 Hill then introduces the reader to the Hypolitan people who are ruled by a matriarchy and their men are allowed to be members of their military but are limited to the lower ranks.

I have never seen this done before and I am quite surprised. To blend these various societal structures into one book while showing the reader why the gender neutral world is an ideal structure for all of its citizens is truly unique. Hill also delves in to the ideas of unequal societal structures based on wealth and status where the poor are often hungry and the wealthy live in luxury.

This novel is part one in a series that was widely popular in the UK with limited reach in the United States, unfortunately, but can be found in US libraries. It is no longer in print in the US, but can be found used on Amazon.