Books you've never read: The True Game

It took me a while to realise that most people haven't read The True Game. I read it  when I was quite young, so it had quite an effect on my thinking about fantasy, becoming part of my background understanding of how fantasy worked, much like Tolkien did for a lot of people (including me) So it was quite a shock to realise that other people didn't share it.

Because I was very young (12?) I missed a lot of what was going on. I had taken it for a standard fantasy epic. You know the one, the one with the young boy hero who is born with a special power, who goes on a journey to change the world and defeat the Evil King. All of which is in the book, but there was so much more. Like the homosexual relationship between Mandor and the underaged hero, Peter.

And so much more. Tepper's style, and Peters voice (the novel is in the first person) is so... nice, that it masks the fact that the Lands of the True Game are horrible places to live. You might think that George R Martin's Westeros has scant regard for human life, but at least there, people only kill for fun and profit. In the Land of the True game peasants are killed by the dozens for the scant advantage that sucking the heat from their bodies gives. The society in which Peter lives and the ethos with which he grew up with completely lacks compassion and morality. Peter grows up without parents, not because they are dead, but because they know that if anyone knew of his parentage they would use him to get at them. Its a wonder that Peter is as nice as he is.

Not that he is a saint. One of the features of this world is the Schools where people of Peters class are raised, kept safe from the horrors of the world outside. Peter grew up being taught in class how, when, and where to kill. It lends an interesting twist to the naive hero who somehow manages to survive all the dangers to reach his destiny. Peter is naive, and is always finding himself in dangerous situations, but when he stops to think about, he has all the mental tools available to outwit, ambush or otherwise overpower his adversaries.

If you've read Tepper's other works, you may start to see her oft used theme here of "People are horrible", but you will have to read the rest of the series (The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped and the Jinian Trilogy, two trilogies often grouped to together as two books) before the full nature of the situation unfolds, and the real message behind the books becomes clear.