Free excerpt from Jo Walton's brilliant <em>Among Others</em>

Tor.com is hosting a long excerpt from Jo Walton’s extraordinary Among Others, one of the best books I’ve read in years. From my original review:

Now, let me tell you what this is all about. Among Others is the diary of Morwenna Phelps, a Welsh teenager whom we really meet just after her twin sister, Morganna, has died in an unspecified but terrible way. It’s 1979, and Morwenna and her sister see fairies and do magic, and have done all their life. Their mother is a terrible and evil witch, and the death of Morganna is somehow related to a spell that they did together to protect themselves — and maybe the world — from her.

And here’s the important part: this is not a soppy book. Morwenna talks to fairies and does a kind of Earth-magic, but she isn’t angst-ridden, she isn’t treacly, she isn’t mystical and spooky. She is, instead, a playground anthropologist, an outcast child who has Jane Goodall’s keen eye for schoolyard social order.

Excerpt: Among Others