This novel is really unlike anything else in fantasy, and that is a good thing. There are two intertwined narratives, each quite conventional, but the combination is unique. Is it a surprise that The Darkness is conquered? No. Is it a surprise that the PTA succeeds in getting a new computer lab built? No. Both in the same novel? That is new.

Jo Walton points out another rarity, the book takes housework seriously. Baking bread, getting homework done, painting the living room, gardening the front yard, all these are on an equal footing with getting the Heart of Darkness to the Duke of War. Really.

( )

This book is very odd, and not just because it was published in 1990 and so is chock-full of 1980s concepts of gender and sexuality (and 1980s whiteness, with no acknowledgement of race or racial difference).
In a book like this, with parallel speculative fiction and mundane fiction stories, I expect the two to come together at the end. In this book, they remain separate and parallel throughout. The only connection is that Sue is watching (imagining? creating) the fantasy story, and that the characters can communicate with her as they give each other advice. The two stories otherwise stay separate. The fantasy story gives Sue the motivation and self-confidence to make changes in her own life, but she doesn't step into the plot of the fantasy story, except in one very small way late in the story.

It's also odd that neither story would really stand alone. The fantasy story without Sue's perspective would be a middle-of-the-road plot, maybe something from the middle of a fantasy magazine from the 1970s. The mundane story of Sue's life probably wouldn't be publishable anywhere - nothing much happens. But the juxtaposition of the two sets Sue's housewifely struggles and triumphs up against the epic fantasy quest, giving grandiosity to the former and everydayness to the latter.

I had a bit of a hard time relating to Sue, not only because our lives are very different, but more because she unquestioningly accepts the norms of her society. She accepts that she "has to" dress and act a certain way to succeed in her role as a housewife, and doesn't seem to question that role at all. The glorification of dressing in nice clothes, throwing successful parties to impress people, and generally making an impact on suburban middle-class society is bizarre to me as a single, urban, nonconformist.

But I do appreciate how unusual the attention to the detail of the housewifely life is. This book is, in its own way a (white) feminist narrative.

Parts of the fantasy sections were a bit of a slog to read - somewhat overwrought and description-heavy. But in general, both halves of the story kept my attention, especially the conclusion(s), which kept me up past my bedtime. ( )

Susan is perfectly happy as a suburban housewife in 1980s America.Well, perhaps not perfectly happy, or she wouldn't be periodically slipping away into a fantasy life, would she? As long as she keeps it within bounds...

She's periodically sharing the minds of sometimes Lady Amalia, a noblewoman with the Sight, and sometimes her servant and general right hand, Marianella, and occasionally others. She sees what they see, learns what they learn, about the creeping Darkness that threatens the land of Demoura.

As long as she doesn't let her fantasy life affect real life...

Except Amalia, Marianella, and the others provide inspiration, example, and even advice, that affects Susan's marriage, family, social life, and even her budding volunteer career. Susan, her husband Fred, Fred's coworkers, and Susan's friends and PTA associates, are as interesting and sometimes strange as the characters in Demoura.

This is an odd book, hard to describe, and absolutely warm, engaging, fun, and a positive addition to the life of anyone who reads it. It "came out, and immediately went back in again," in 1990, due to the publisher having no idea how to market something this different from their usual fare at the time. Potential readers missed out then, but now the magic of the internet means you don't have to track down a hard to find paperback more than twenty years old. Do so; you won't regret it. Susan and her friends, in Demoura and in the "real world," will brighten your life.

Highly recommended.

I bought this book. ( )

The first time I read this I was frustrated by the housewifely aspects of this; I've changed a lot about my head since then and now I especially love that part because I can see more clearly the bits that make it clear that the kids being in school make this sudden bout of domestic competence possible; and of course the fact that she rapidly heads well beyond the domestic sphere into politics, and her husband's appreciation of that. And at the same time that the domestic is valued in a way I haven't always.

The fantasy's okay too. It's in some ways perhaps more dated than the computers, and it's very generic; it's the 'real world' that feels most vivid to me, but of course it wouldn't work without the fantasy, and vice versa: the story is in the interaction between the two and that's what I love the most. ( )

Sue, a white suburban 80s housewife with three kids, who are just now in school full-time, starts experiencing the adventures of a psychic and a chatelaine in a fantasy land threatened by the Darkness, with glancing similarities to situations in her own life (though with far more serious consequences for the fantasylanders). The psychic, a high lady, starts giving Sue advice on how to comport herself, including how to dress, what to read, and how to handle difficult situations with her husband’s boss and with the local PTA. Whether Sue is experiencing a break with reality or connecting with another one is never entirely clear. What’s most interesting to me is how extraordinarily historically specific Sue’s life is. It’s not just, or even mostly, that Sue’s plot involves the introduction of “microcomputers” to the school and to her husband’s business. The social relations are much more striking: the background assumptions about what women’s natural concerns are, not just in the essentialist feminism of the local academic couple but also Sue’s own defaults. She’s perfectly accepting of a single woman working—but she also thinks her own husband is one of the good ones because he doesn’t beat her, doesn’t drink too much, and lets her have extra money in order to make the house look better as part of securing him a promotion. Her husband defends her from criticism by saying that not only does the house look great but she’s become better in bed, so he’d support her getting a job outside the home. Maybe it’s the election season in which I’m reading this, but it creeped me out. ( )