Cargon: Honour & Privilege, by Kimberly Gould
Lives are won, lost and traded on the three-tiered Cargon boards. Eve, a serving-girl, has watched the elite from the outside, seen the dramatic shifts based on the results of the Game. With a growing need to reach beyond her station, she can no longer accept her position on the edges. Wagering her own life, she wins and emerges in a strange new world. New rules and old acquaintances tangle to make Eve’s life less comfortable than her position would suggest. One pawn moved, but an entire world shaken – Eve will change the world.
Cargon comes to us from our New Author Reviews program, and I’m so glad SarahB thought of me when she got the submission. It’s probably one of the most unique and interesting things I’ve read in a very long time.
Eve lives in what I think is the very distant future of the US, although it is divided up into what operates like Medieval kingdoms. There are the elite class: Princes, Princesses, Ducat, Ducati, Vinca and Vanto. There is the Highest One and her Second, which is her eldest son, Adam. Eve is in the servant class and is overjoyed to discover that she has been picked for the wine service during dinner. Her first night, she discovers the perplexing game of Cargon.
Cargon is a game, not unlike chess, only a game is not played without a wager. The wagers can be something simple, but most of the time they are not. Women wager their husbands, and men wager their wives. They take chances at their stations, sometimes with disastrous results. When Eve displays a keen intellect she is mysteriously removed from her normal assignments and placed in the classes reserved for the children of the elite class and granted access to the libraries. Eventually, she waits until after dinner service one night and begins an open game of Cargon…not know that the Second was watching in the wings to take up the challenge.
This book is impossible to describe…you simply must read it. The author is very descriptive but at the same time very vague. We don’t know where they are, we don’t even know what time period this is in, we are simply given clues. For example, they talk briefly of stories told about buildings higher than the trees that look like skeletons and paths made of tar-like substances that seem to go on for miles and miles. The characters are regularly excited about things such the use of steam engines…it’s like a neo-steampunk era!
I only had a few minor quibbles with Cargon. The middle of the book seemed to lose it’s way a bit, and the ending left me wandering. It was definitely left open-ended and I rushed to ask the author if another book or two was planned. To my delight, she is currently working on a sequel! But to balance out my complaints, I have to say I loved that the elite class wasn’t completely overrun with a bunch of entitled snobs. For the most part they were polite, and grateful for their station, and it seems as though none of them took their positions for granted, because it could be lost in a second during a daring game of Cargon. The Highest One (sort of like the Queen) was a very pleasant and educated woman and befitting of her status. I disliked Louis, but began to soften toward him near the end, but I’m not sure if the reader is supposed to like him or not!
I give Cargon: honour & privilege a solid 3.5 fangs. I think the author did such a wonderful job of creating a new type of society while not revealing too much. I look forward to a follow up and think her writing is only going to get more compelling the more she writes. In short, make sure to put this title on your Christmas list! You certainly won’t regret it, and you’ll actually learn a thing or two while reading.
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