Contemporary gothic horror of the juiciest kind. In modern-day London, a perfumed woman with fluorescent hair abducts 13-year-old Ricky. The narrative then switches to Jonathan, an independent 14-year-old whose father suffers bouts of mental illness or “darkening.” As the kidnappers pursue Jonathan, he pursues his father’s obsession, a place called Darkside that “ ‘tears pieces of your soul away.’ ” Fluorescent Marianne and her goons follow Jonathan to Darkside, where he finds a friend of his father’s who happens to be a werewolf (“ ‘wereman,’ ” corrects Carnegie after nearly eating Jonathan). Darkside, reached by damp pipe or abandoned tube station, is a grisly and fetid alternate London. Ghoulish figures in stovepipe hats throng the sidewalks, kicking and elbowing; screams puncture the night; murder is ubiquitous. Two separate people have put a price on Jonathan’s head, one to place him in a death menagerie with Ricky. Becker switches threads rarely but with perfectly timed precision. Revenge upon those who escape immediate harm looms large for the next installment, as does Jonathan and Ricky’s mysterious Darkside heritage. Grounded, yet delectably lurid. (Fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-545-03739-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
McCaughrean (Pirate’s Son, 1999, etc.) sends a lad through as fine an array of malign faeries, usteys, corn wives, soul-stealing merrows, skinless muckelavees, and other deadly bogles as ever lurked in Celtic folklore, in hopes of slaying a dragon literally “half the size of Wales.” It all comes upon 11-year-old Phelim suddenly, when his home’s supernatural guardian, the Domovoy, appears, calling him “Jack O’Green” and insisting that he better get a move on. It seems that the guns of the WWI have not only disturbed the 2,000-year sleep of the Stoor Worm that lies along the Welsh coast, but have set her stone eggs to hatching out all the creatures of nightmare to boot. Frightened and mystified but gaining confidence as he goes, Phelim acquires some unlikely companions—Alexia, a young witch; Sweeney, a soldier driven mad in the Napoleonic Wars; and for transportation, a headless, ungainly “Obby Oss.” He narrowly escapes death several times, and learns what he needs to know from his adventures to accomplish his seemingly hopeless task. McCaughrean creates a world turned upside down, in which creatures thought safely tucked away in entertaining legends assume terrifying reality, and old local blood rites are revived in self defense: as the Obby Oss says, “Magic is not nice. Magics wuz never nice.” Nor, as it turns out, is Phelim, quite, for at the end he dispatches his trollish big sister to the ends of the earth on a water sprite’s back for placing their father, the real Jack O'Green, into an asylum. Despite the distracting family subplot, not since William Mayne’s Hob and the Goblins (1994) has the Old Magic risen in the modern world with such resounding menace. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-028765-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A futuristic society that requires fish to feed its populace begins an underwater habitat designed to increase sunlight on the seafloor in order to produce plankton. Unknown saboteurs suddenly threaten the existence of the habitat and all humankind by destroying one-third of the habitat’s sunlight. Young Imina uses her grandmother’s shaman magic to narrow in on the culprit; her friend Ivan uses logic and technology, i.e., computers. The villains are not the obvious choice—the Unificationists, who created a crop virus that made the underwater habitat necessary—but rather, angry whales. They are trying to disharmonize the habitat’s motors to drive human beings away and prevent additional whales from being hunted. A truce must be swiftly attained or humans will starve. Imina’s ability to use mental telepathy and “speak” with the whales saves the habitat and reminds the reader of the importance of preserving the sea and its creatures. This unlikely combination of science fiction, Inuit lore, and ecology also brings a much-needed wake-up call about being a thoughtful steward of the earth’s resources. It would be hard to miss the final message: human technology alone will not bring about desired results if environmental harmony isn’t also considered in the equation. Imina’s determination to become a skilled shaman and claim her Inuit name will strike a nerve with all young women coming into their own. All in all, a delightful first novel. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7868-0561-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
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