Among Others

Among Others is a 2011 fantasy novel by Welsh-Canadian writer Jo Walton, originally released by Tor Books. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 2011, the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2012, and the 2012 British Fantasy Award.

Walton wrote the book in 36 days during 2008, between 29 February and 29 May. It is her ninth published novel. She describes it as semi-autobiographical, focusing on the experience of growing up with books as companions instead of people, a feeling she later learned was common among readers. Like her protagonist, Walton was a Welsh student at an English boarding school and walked with a cane.

The main character is 15 in 1979, so she and Walton were born and raised in the same part of Wales around the same time. Walton also drew on her own upbringing with a paranoid schizophrenic mother, saying it gave her a useful understanding of evil that shaped the portrayal of the protagonist's mother. The inspiration came from a 2008 online journal entry about the Welsh landscape of her childhood, where she felt she was living in a fantasy landscape but was actually in a science fictional one.

Walton stresses the novel is not autobiography but a mythologisation of her life, a fantasy novel built on autobiographical material.

The working title was The Industrial Ruins of Elfland, but Walton changed it after a friend pointed out that "among others" often appears in biographical bibliographies—an author wrote specific works "among others"—which she felt suited the novel. It was first published in North America by Tor in January 2011, then in the UK by Corsair in October 2012.

The story is told through the diary of Morgana, a 15-year-old Welsh science fiction and fantasy fan, in 1979 and 1980. She and her twin sister Morwenna, both often called Mor or Mori, grew up playing with and working magic alongside fairies in the Welsh hills. Months before the diary begins, their mother—insane and a witch—tries to gain power to take over the world. The sisters stop her, but their mother causes them to be hit by a car, killing Morwenna and permanently damaging Morgana's leg. Morgana mostly uses Morwenna's name afterward, though she still goes by Mori.

With her mother insane and her grandfather in a care facility after a stroke, Mori runs away and is sent to western England to live with her father and three half-sisters she has never met. Grieving her sister, her lost ability to run, and her beloved Welsh countryside, she struggles as a disabled, friendless outsider. She finds solace in books, and her shared love of reading becomes her main connection to her father. Her family sends her to a nearby girls' boarding school, which she finds unmagical and unpleasant.

She has few friends and plenty of free time because she finishes schoolwork quickly and cannot play sports due to her injury. She reads constantly, borrowing books from her father, the school library, the local public library, and interlibrary loan. Her diary records her and others' reactions to these books with as much interest as any other event. She casts a spell to find friends with a common purpose, then is invited to a science fiction and fantasy readers' club at the library.

There she makes connections and eventually a boyfriend who shares her interest in books and magic, though he can barely see fairies and cannot perform spells.

Magic remains a constant presence. Soon after arriving at school, Mori's mother sends letters and family photos with Mori's image burned out, and launches magical attacks to control her. Mori works with local fairies but finds she must return to Wales to truly connect and perform protective magic. She is offered the chance to join her dead sister as a fairy, but that requires her own death. She chooses instead to embrace her new life and future. She confronts her mother in a final magical battle, wins, and returns to her new family and boyfriend.

Among Others blends fantasy with a coming-of-age story. It is an epistolary novel, presented as diary entries that cover everything from math grades and buying a first bra to performing ritual magic to help the dead pass on. The book carefully balances whether Mori's magic and fairies are real, though a stronger confirmation comes when her boyfriend also sees the fairies. Walton has stated she intended the magic to be real, and the theme of unreliable narration was not intentional, though many readers have picked up on it.