The Book of Koli, book 1 of Carey’s Rampart trilogy, was excellent. The Trials of Koli was a significant step up.
I expected a harrowing journey across post-apocalyptic England, the (admittedly highly specific) subgenre Carey already showed his mastery of in The Girl With All the Gifts and The Boy on the Bridge. I expected more of the awesome counterpoint between the post-apocalyptic civilization and Monono’s peppy Japanese pop star personality. I did not expect a strident and moving book about trans rights, and I did not expect Koli would go from being the protagonist to being the co-protagonist. The other is Spinner, the girl from his home village. I was not expecting events there to be given nigh-co-equal status with Koli’s story - it honestly caught me completely off-guard. But it gives a wonderful balance to the story, and puts me in anticipation of things coming full circle in a way I hadn’t realized I wasn’t expecting.
Koli’s story proceeds much as I expected: he and his companions are going on their journey to London. Along the way they deal with the dangers of the countryside (the world of these books can be compared to that of The Fifth Season, with biology instead of geology being the thing that wants to kill everyone). They meet not-nice people and nice people and overcome assorted and sundry obstacles. The best part of it is the relationship among Koli, Monono, Ursula, and Cup. There’s a tremendous amount of mistrust there, which isn’t surprising given how The Book of Koli, but the way the relationship develops is absolutely awesome.
Spinner’s story is one that, in retrospect, I should have seen coming. The fallout of the events of Book of Koli for their village was obviously going to be huge, and I don’t why I just kind of assumed we’d seen the last of them. And meanwhile, they’re under threat from that Peacemaker guy ruling the nearby town of Halifax Half-ax. The vague and ominous references to him in Book of Koli really should have clued me in that was going to come up again, as well.
What about the trans rights thing? Well, as you may recall (I totally didn’t) from Book of Koli, Cup is a trans woman. I’d forgotten because Koli didn’t have any prejudices in that regard: Cup felt she was a girl, presented as a girl, so as far as Koli was concerned she was a girl. Genitals weren’t relevant to that, and sometimes nature just got that mixed up. So Koli spent much more time worrying about her shooting him than he spent worrying about which bathroom she should be allowed to use, and I didn’t give it any thought either. That kind of prejudice-free world can be a refreshing, wonderful read, and in hindsight that’s pretty much how I’d filed it away mentally (despite Cup’s references to being forced to run away from home by her abusive non-accepting parents). This book takes a different approach. Cup deals with judgement for being who she is, and it’s probably my favorite sequence of the book. She also goes through puberty (later than normal because of poor nutrition), which is often very challenging for trans teens, and that is handled wonderfully.
So, yeah, this was absolutely wonderful. Looking forward (with some trepidation, given the title) to the trilogy wrapping up in The Fall of Koli.
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