William Nicholson's Wind Singer trilogy: Harrowing quests with a dash of kidsy fantasy in a Roman-inspired dystopia

What's the plot?

In the walled city of Aramanth, families' social positions are governed by endless tests and an oppressive fixation on striving for more. But rebellious young Kestrel has had enough. She leads her brother Bowman and unlikely companion Mumpo on a deathly odessey that will take first them, then all of Aramanth, across the world in search for freedom.

Where's it from?

The first of the books came out in the year 2000, and there's a certain old-school sensibility to the story that marks it out as non-American even before I found out that Mr Nicholson is indeed British.

The vibe in three words: Tense, thought-provoking, adventurous

Re-readable? Maybe not often, but definitely worth revisiting.

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It's the very early 2010s, and we're sitting on the mat as our stern and quirky teacher reads from a book with an S-shaped amulet on the cover, half-buried in red sand.

There's funny catchphrases - "Pompaprune! Sagahog!". There's a colourful city with a grey-clad underclass, orange-housed middle classes, scarlet suburbs of well-to-do, and white marble district of the powerful. There's an endless army of evil, a daring plunge into a flame-filled door - and that mystical musical contraption itself, the wind singer. 

Fifteen-ish years later I happened across The Wind Singer in Arty Bee's, and was curious to relive those intermediate-school days. Somewhere along the way I'd also learned that it was part of a trilogy, and you know what that means - it was time to make some library requests from the stacks.

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The main thing that stuck in my mind from that original read was how the characters lived in constant fear of the tests that determined their family's fate. 

In one of the opening chapters we see two-year old Pinpin being sat down in a hall to be quizzed on toddler-appropriate knowledge, a funny yet sinister scene that leads to family-wide anxiety about how Pinpin peeing on the examiner would damage their standing.

Kestrel's hatred of tests is the catalyst for the whole series' plot, when she flees with Bowman to escape the terrifying punishment for disobedience. Up till this point the story is classically dystopian - except for the fact that these twins have telepathy (now where have I seen that before?). 

A mysterious figure entrusts Kestrel with a treasure map and the task of retrieving the wind singer's voice - that silver amulet from the cover - which will bring goodness back into the hearts of Aramanth. So far, so simple. Back home, the parents endure the injustices of a society that demands that they conform, and start a rebellion of their own.

The long walk to retrieve the MacGuffin could be a bog-standard middle-grade quest, but Nicholson knows how to keep the pace up and the tension high. 

The unwanted loser Mumpo tags along with the twins, which creates some great dynamics, and the dangers on the way are genuinely frightening: a relentless pursuit of wrinkled 'old children' who suck the life from you with a touch; murderous warfaring tribes who can't listen to reason; a crumbling bridge over an impassable crevasse - oh, and the constant threat of starvation. I imagined that the kids were about twelve, but they're only ten - in the second book five years have passed and they're just 15, which makes the horrors of the first book even more disturbing.

At the same time, there's a quaint charm to the story that reminded me of Badjelly the Witch. There's helpful wolves and eagles, an immortal woman asleep in a well-appointed bedroom, and the warring desert tribes differentiate friend from foe by hairstlyes and are quite decent under all the posturing. It's a strange mix of genres, but it works; possibly because the dystopia-rebellion vibes are confined to the city while the epic magic quest takes place in the world beyond.

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Book two, though, takes the characters in a totally new and dark direction. It's my stand-out favourite of the three, and the most sophisticated. 

The Wind Singer is a perfectly good stand-alone adventure, but Slaves of the Mastery is where things really get interesting. Right off the bat, now-peaceful Aramanth (and its precious wind singer) is burned to the ground by slavers from across the desert. Amongst the murder and destruction Kestrel evades capture and follows the slave march, vowing vengeance on the warrior-prince who led the attack. Talk about amping up the stakes! 

Kestrel is a great heroine, full of passion and rage, and I love how she always achieves her aims through cleverness rather than physical force; she's a bit like Lyra in His Dark Materials. She talks her way into joining a travelling caravan and makes unexpected friends with a hilariously spoiled yet lonely princess who's on her way to marry the Mastery's warrior-prince. Kestrel also makes uneasy allies with the prideful leader of the caravan's soldiers, manipulating him into a cunning plot to free her people. It all culminates in an excellently action-packed third act full of dramatic irony and inner conflict.

I read in the author bio at the back of the book that William Nicholson was also a screenwriter on Gladiator, which makes total sense and definitely flavoured my imaginging of the world. 

In Slaves of the Mastery, he takes a thought-provoking look at slavery and what makes a 'great' kingdom. The world feels a lot more real and fleshed out than the fantastical journey of The Wind Singer, and this instalation doesn't shy away from violence. Some of the most horrific scenes involve named characters being burned alive to scare the new slaves into obedience. It's a continuation of the themes from the previous book, just applied to a different form of societal control. 

Personality-wise, Bowman is the opposite of his sister, and I appreciated having a boy main character who is deeply thoughtful, kind, and sensititve. The twins' connection and love for each other is truly the heart of the series. In this book, Bowman is apprenticed to the warrior-prince, and is disarmed by the prince's apparent goodness and his reverent loyalty to the Master who rules this beautiful kingdom. Bowman and his family try to convince the others of the need to escape, but the Mastery actually treats its slaves extremely well, and life there is almost happy. What is freedom, really? Is it worth dying for? Would you risk it all?

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The Wind on Fire takes us back to good old desert treks and commits to a magic plot again, but falls into cliche.

In book two Bowman started to develop some telekenisis powers to go with his telepathy, and has a classic mind-battle with the big bad "we're not so different, you and I" Master. The last book in the trilogy doubles down on that serious tone. It also does a weird thing I've noticed in other kids' books of the period where there'll be cut-away interludes to a distant side-plot, which tend to drag the pace down.

The majority of book three is about reaching the fabled homeland of the Manth people, with spine-tingling obstacles at every turn. Then Bowman has to go off for special chosen-one training. To be honest, I skimmed the book from there on, despite my fondness for the characters. Being taught to crush an egg with your mind and saving the world by simply believing in yourself is nowhere near as gripping as the down-to-earth plot that the blurb focused on - of Kestrel being taken by bandits and the twins' fight to find each other again (a thrilling but much-too-short setpiece). 

One thing I did not like was the sudden random emphasis on everyone pairing up. What is this, Love Island?

In Slaves of the Mastery Kestrel feels like an outsider for not wanting to be married, which made her a nice foil to the child-bride princess. But later, her solitariness becomes her defining trait. In a scene where a prophet reveals everyone's futures, not only are all of them but Kestrel destined to marry each other, but multiple young girls are set up with older men, including Pinpin who for some reason has an all-consuming crush on ten-years-older Mumpo. (Mumpo meanwhile is forever in love with Kestrel, who has to apologise to him and feel guilty for not reciprocating. But hey guys, if you don't you get the girl you can always marry her baby sister!) It was a shame that an unnecessary romance rivalry gets in the way of Pinpin and Kestrel's sisterly relationship.

In the epilogue, the survivors are all very heteronormatively shacked up together in a kinda gross Deathly Hallows way, a disappointingly cliche end to an otherwise great series. I'm glad I didn't get to the third book when I was younger - Kestrel's "broken, wrong" singleness doesn't set a good example in a society that already holds up coupledom as the ultimate goal for girls.

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It is really satisfying to see how the characters change through the books. 

Pitiful Mumpo evolves into a hardened fighter; a coddled friend becomes a scarred runaway; a cowherd was once an emperor; the powerful lose everything, allies turn to enemies, and traitors sacrifice themselves for others. 

The last two books also move from focusing on Kestrel and Bowman to encompassing a much wider raft of characters. It did make the twins feel off to the side somewhat, but the community is very well-drawn and they all have fantastic names: Red Mimilith, Hanno Hath, Rufy Blesh, Ombaraka and Omchaka, the Zohanna of Gang. 

I liked too the way things from previous books came up again, like the princess's wedding dress being used as a way-finding flag. However, there's more things that aren't ever returned to. What happened to the mud-dwellers underneath Aramanth when it was burned? What was the deal with those life-sucking old children who were sent after kids who refused to follow the rules?

It's also easy to see how The Wind Singer became a go-to school read, with its relatable anti-exams message. 

As a kid reader it's all hell yeah, tests suck - but as an adult reader, it's clear the author's got meritocracy in mind. At one point the dad has a 'you wouldn't judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree' moment, while the order-obsessed leaders smugly monologue on the virtues of the system - what could be fairer than one exam for everyone? If you're in the slums, why, it must be because you're lazy and just need to work harder like us at the top. It's unpleasantly reminiscent of certain hateable politicians - which helps the book feel relevant today.

If you've read this far into the blog you'll be aware of the kind of books I gravitate towards, but fear not, dear reader - I am reading two adult fiction books at the moment. These reviews won't all be kids' fantasies!

Pick up Slaves of the Mastery if you're in the mood for a suspenseful and compelling revenge plot. If the characters get their hooks in you by all means check out the rest of the series - just don't expect a mindblowing original ending. 

Susan Cooper's King of Shadows: Ever wished Shakespeare was your dad?

What’s the plot?

Nat is a young actor with a tragic past who’s on the trip of a lifetime: playing Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the brand-new reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. But before the performance, Nat wakes up several centuries in the past - where Shakespeare is looking for a kid to play Puck at his brand-new Globe ...

Where’s it from?

English author Susan Cooper (of The Dark is Rising fame) penned this on the brink of the millenium, in 1999.

The vibe in three words: Angsty, 90s, wholesome

Re-readable? For big Bard fans, perchance.

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Welcome back to your definitely-irregularly-scheduled review from the stacks! 

2025 was an odd reading year; none of the books old enough to qualify for this blog were amazing enough or awful enough to inspire immediate reviews. But not all reviews need be 2000-word essays! (I say, and promptly write 1500 words ...) Anyway, here’s looking forward to catching up and reflecting on some of them in a less intense fashion - maybe a ‘didn't finish’ compilation is on the cards one day.

One of the old books I read last year was King of Shadows, which despite the name isn’t a dark romantasy. 

The titular king is none other than Willy Shakes, ‘King of Shadows’ referring to his mastery of the mysterious powers of imagination. It’s also in reference to the fairy-king Oberon, the role played in the play-within-the-book by Mister Shakes himself.

The version I read had a new cover that leans into the fantasy vibe, with generic ‘medieval’ font and the Globe in a tunelling spiral - but the original cover has this great illustration of a boy, split in two by the title, in Elizabethan garb on the top half and sneakered feet resting on a skateboard in the bottom, which I just love. Both the cover and the atmosphere of the story are extremely utopian scholastic (the name for that colourful aesthetic of 90s/2000s kids’ encyclopedias and ‘edutainment’ - just think those DK cross-section books).

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Our time-travelling thespian, Nathan Fields, is introduced to us at a performing arts camp (a comfortingly cliche setting reminiscent of the start of any Goosebumps book), as his youth theatre crew get ready to fly to London for the big show. The kids are American, probably to appeal to readers that side of the Atlantic, but it also comes in handy plot-wise; apparently some American accents have similarities to Elizabethan English. 

I appreciated that we get to spend a decent amount of time getting to know Nat and his new friends, establishing his relationships and dreams in the present rather than whisking him straight to the past. Nat is a real likeable kid with a penchant for acrobatics and a love of acting as a form of escape from real life (he’s an orphan, of course, but more on that later). 

Woven into all of this is a gentle crash-course in Shakespeare and the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream - you can see why this book scooped a bunch of honours and was a Carnegie finalist. I can’t quite recall what Cooper says in the acknowledgements, but I have the faint idea that it may have even been commissioned specially to coincide with the opening of the modern Globe.

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Things get really fun when Nat goes to bed sick one night and wakes up circa 1600. 

It appears he’s taken the place of another Nat (a real person, by the way) who’s come to lodge with actor Richard Burbage while they put on the Dream play. The stakes are high - Queen Elizabeth I is going to be in attendance - and Nat has to try his best to blend in to the times while rehearsing alongside every theatre nerd’s idol. 

Elizabethan London is very well described and easy to picture, from the candlelit cosiness of a thatched-roof house to the blood and ale of the bear-baiting pit. Bringing history to life, indeed - I bet there are schools that still use this book today. Some bits made me scratch my head, historical-accuracy wise, but it’s probably because there are things we know now about Shakespeare’s time that they didn’t know in the 90s.

The plot really cracks along - Nat gets into a classic dangerous-bully scenario with a rival actor, and rouses suspicions of witchcraft with his weirdness. He’s homesick for the future, he’s in love with the past. The play is in jeopardy, the play is saved. And there’s the existential threat of what will happen once the play is over; will he have to go back to the real Nat’s home and family, to be recognised as an imposter?

There are hints of a sub-plot to do with rebels, which doesn’t lead to much, but that’s hardly the point of the book; the true heart is Nat’s bond with Shakespeare as a mentor and father figure.

It’s another great example of the double-fantasy trope. Sure, Nat has to live through the horrors of an era where criminals’ heads decorate London Bridge, but he also gets to take acting tips from the Bard, ends up staying at his house, and becomes almost like an adopted son. It’s nice for W Shakes too, whose children are back in Stratford ‘pon Avon. 

Nat’s backstory is also slowly revealed, involving the fresh trauma of a dead dad who Nat feels he wasn’t ‘good enough’ for. The book’s sweetest moments are where he opens up to Shakespeare, who comforts Nat and even gifts him a copy of his “ever-fixed mark” sonnet. 

I’m often surprised, reading older books, at how dark they can be - there’s no shy skimming over descriptions of death here. Kids’ books from yesteryear are just as starkly serious as the edgiest YA novels of today.

Even though he can’t stay trapped in the past forever, it’s quite a blow when Nat is spirited back to 1999, leaving his newfound friends and the precious sonnet copy behind. 

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All that said, King of Shadows is not without its flaws. Throughout the book, we get jarring interludes showing what the historical Nat (swapped out with 90s Nat) is up to - aka. disoriented as heck and suffering with the plague in an isolation ward, to the confusion of the doctors. 

I wasn’t keen on these bits with their odd third-person narration, and thought we could have just stuck with Nat in the past, wondering what’s going on in his time without him. That way you could have the intrigue of him returning to discover there’d been a swap-over, Charlotte Sometimes style, and regretting even more that he’ll never get to meet the boy whose life he briefly took over. (We do get a cool scene where Nat finds a portrait of the historical Nathan Fields and ponders the life he could have had if he’d somehow stayed, hoping historical Nat kept up the friendship he started with Shakes.)

Time travel, unless facilitated by a sci-fi machine, is usually best left unexplained, but frustratingly Cooper spends the end of the book retrospectively justifying Nat’s adventure. 

It’s good to see Nat struggle to readjust to modern London and getting annoyed at inaccurate representations of the old days, but then the plot drags out into an investigation of why it all happened to him. Can’t a guy just have a character-building time-slip for the sake of it, cos the universe saw he needed it? Not here. 

Turns out (spoiler!) Nat’s drama teacher, Arby, is secretly R.B. - Richard Burbage, hah hah (sigh). He’s some kind of ... immortal wizard? and has been searching through time for another Puck actor called Nat to replace the Nat who has the plague ... all so that Shakespeare can have his play without perishing to the Black Death along with all his literary genius. Couldn’t wizard Burbage have, I dunno, just killed the plague-ridden Nat and found an understudy? Does he have to find future doppelganger replacements every time an infectious person comes into Shakespeare’s life? Does this mean Christopher Marlowe had a mystical protector who just stuffed up real bad? At least plague-Nat gets to be treated in a modern hospital instead of succumbing to the buboes, I guess.

Whatever the case, it made the whole plot seem manufactured, Nat all along a pawn in a grander plan instead of the hero of his own story. Despite enjoying the bulk of the book, it was the ending that ultimately made me rate it 3.5 stars.

Overall a well-written historical romp that gives you pretty much everything you’d expect - if you know or are a young ‘un with an interest in Shakespeare, I’d say it’s worth the read.

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And shout-out to the awesome booklists on the Wellington Library website - algorithms could never. 

I came across King of Shadows here, probably in the ‘adventures through time’ list - the librarians update them with new recommendations every once in a while. I've been wanting to read Antonia Forest’s The Player's Boy for ages, which has a very similar setup of a boy running away to be apprenticed by Shakespeare, so King of Shadows seemed right up my alley while I waited to afford one of the crazily-priced second-hand Forest books (except wow, just looked it up and it seems they’ve finally done a reprint, so look forward to that review!).

Maurice Gee’s Under the Mountain: The famous kiwi kids’ adventure that’s darker than you’d expect

What’s the plot?

Twins Rachael and Theo are staying with their family in Auckland for the summer, but their holiday’s barely begun when they’re pulled into a terrifying world of shapeshifting aliens and psychic powers. Only if they learn to use their newfound abilities together can they hope to destroy the creatures that are about to emerge from under the mountains ... before the creatures destroy the entire universe. No pressure.

Where’s it from?

This was Maurice Gee’s first children’s novel, which he wrote in 1979, and it’s been in print ever since. Twenty-five years later, it won the Gaelyn Gordon Award - given to NZ children’s books that weren’t recognised when they were first published.

The vibe in three words: Old-school, ominous, chilling
Re-readable? Yeah, actually (it ain’t a classic for nothing!)

 

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It’s April, and I’m the fool - for losing my copy of Under the Mountain since January and only now remembering where I put it! The holiday blogging break has been longer than anticipated, so welcome back to your semi-regularly scheduled dip into the library stacks.

 

Are you a true kiwi kid if you haven’t read Under the Mountain? 

I never did, but somehow me and my siblings still had in-jokes about the Wilberforces - that’s how ingrained this story is in the national psyche. I remember a Sideswipe quip from a woman who recalled telling her kids off in the car for screaming that they’d seen Mr Wilberforce, then turning around to see the actor from the ‘80s TV show crossing the road in front of them. Most of all, I remember the 2009 movie’s laughable Wilberforce line “I will observe you to die” (iconically said before proceeding to chase the protagonists at walking speed).

Campy villains, lava tunnels, and epic volcano eruptions - that was my initial impression of the story. That’s what the movie would have you think, at least. Now, having finally read the book, my impression is more along the lines of sci-fi thriller, dread-inducing responsibility ... and, paradoxically, good old-fashioned kids’ book charm.

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I tend to gravitate to books set in far-off foreign places (it’s not escapism if it’s where you already live), but I really enjoyed the familiarity of Under the Mountain. Rachel and Theo arrive in the bustle of Auckland city, are picked up by their cousin Ricky, and are driven over the harbour bridge towards the North Shore with the view of volcanic cones and sailboats - it’s something me and my siblings have done countless times, even though we grew up in a different century to these characters. Seeing your own home in fiction does give you a little spark of joy.

 

Maurice Gee has said he “wanted settings New Zealand children would recognise, with New Zealand as the most important place in the world, as it is for the children who live here.”

 

I’m sure generations of young readers have climbed Mount Eden or gone swimming at Takapuna Beach and imagined themselves as Rachel or Theo, a normal kid with a secret deadly task. Even the prologue in the King Country farm town is oh so recognisable. It’s instantly relatable, and I think it’s partly because of the way the characters are written - but before I get onto that, let’s talk about the plot. 

 

 

We all know that a story is only as good as its villain - and the Wilberforces are pretty darn good.

 

Ah, Mr and Mrs Wilberforce. They live in the dilapidated house across the lake, leave grey slime and a rotten smell wherever they go - and they drive a black hearse! What more can you ask for? 

 

As Rachel and Theo discover, the Wilberforces are also shapeshifting slug aliens, who act as the brains for enormous space worms that lie in wait under the mountains of Auckland. The worms are waking up, and when they do it’ll all be over for planet earth. Luckily Mr Jones, their ancient adversary, is in the neighbourhood - all he needs is some telepathic twins to wield some magic stones to put the worms to rest once and for all.

 

 

The scenes with the Wilberforces are by far the best in the book, not only because they’re delightfully creepy, but because these are the scenes where the twins have the most agency.

 

I love the part where Rachel and Theo are lured into the Wilberforce house, land in (literal) deep trouble, and have to get out on their own. Aside from the Coraline-esque thrills of crawling through dusty basements in places you’re not supposed to be, it’s extra tense because they’ve had their memories wiped for some reason (thanks, Mr Jones) and they’re struggling to remember what’s going on. It’s always great when the audience knows more than the characters do.

 

 

World-building wise, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. I like that the twins rediscover their childhood telepathy skills, cutely called “pebbling” (even if I occasionally missed that they were doing it ‘cause it’s styled in quote marks like spoken dialogue). The Wilberforces have a funky tunnel network made of a material that’s solid from one side and squishy from the other, creating the horror of suffocating in jelly while trying to escape through the walls. Then there’s the eerie floating models of the solar system in the Wilberforce house, the planets seething in cold, sticky mud, belying their sinister ambitions. Eat your heart out, Lovecraft.

 

“They’re creatures of tremendous will - no imagination, no feeling, no conscience,”  Mr Jones says - aptly adding, “They remind me of some of the leaders of your race.”

 

The only thing that stood out as weird was the fact that the Wilberforce language is described as “quacking”, which is kinda silly ... but on reflection I think it makes them seem less threatening at first, which makes the reveal of their true danger more intense.

 

 

 

Another exciting/terrifying scene is the one where Mr Wilberforce corners Rachel and Theo in their own home. They can hold him off with their powers, but not for long, and are on the brink of death when Ricky and his mates arrive for a party and rescue them. It is nice that the family comes to their aid, as opposed to some books where adults never believe the kids - even if Mr Jones’s mind control is partly to thank.

 

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In contrast, the chapters of sitting around learning to use psychic powers are a bit dull - mostly because half the time the twins are forced to go along with Mr Jones’s instructions (who often frustratingly refuses to elaborate on the what and why of things). In this way, Under the Mountain reminds me of other real old-school fantasies like Over Sea, Under Stone.

 

Mr Jones is meant to be a kindly old man, of course, but he’s almost an antagonist in the way that he manipulates the twins for the greater good. But, surprisingly, Theo and Rachel get just as fed up with this as I did, and it was satisfying when they rebel against Mr Jones and insist on doing things for themselves. Theo’s disobedience actually thwarts the big plan, which was great - Mr Jones might try to shepherd the twins along a heroic path, but they’re only human, and their flawed actions have real consequences.

 

 

Rachel and Theo’s main traits are aligned to how they use their twinned powers: Rachel is intuitive, and connects to her magic stone easily, while Theo is a realist whose need to understand his stone only blocks his ability to use it. There’s also the threat that the stones might not even work for them ‘cause they’re not identical twins.

The whole “boy = science, girl = emotion” thing made me raise my eyebrows a bit, but it’s cool that Rachel’s sensitivity makes her more adept at saving the world than Theo, and they each get a fairly even share of the physical action too. Plus, having a science-minded kid does help slip in the necessary bits of volcano information here and there. I know the book’s been adapted twice already, but I’d be interested to see a version where one (or both) of the twins is trans or non-binary, to play around with the gender expectations even more.

 

 

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I kind of wanted the twins to have stronger personalities, but it’s always side characters who have more attitude than protagonists anyway. You can tell that Ricky’s their older cousin as soon as he’s introduced, and I don’t know what Gee intended, but I got the sense that Ricky and their auntie were Māori while their annoying uncle was Pākeha. I think having slightly generic characters has also helped Under the Mountain stay timeless - it would have dated a lot if Rachel was a Bee Gees fan, or if Theo was into All Blacks whose names are now quiz answers.

 

In any case, not being fully formed makes Rachel and Theo really easy to emphasise with. There’s enough to give you a sense of their lives without bogging you down in backstory, and these brief mentions are especially poignant near the end. “Dreams of his home and parents and friends floated through his mind. That life seemed far away. He did not believe he would ever find his way back to it.” We don’t need to know who those friends are; we picture our own friends, just as we don’t need to be told the details of the twins’ relationship - if you have siblings, you know what it’s like.

 

Not that the twins are robots - Gee gives us a good hint of their feelings, but doesn’t dwell on them, letting the reader fill in the blanks. It’s refreshing to read something that isn’t full of angst or overwrought emotions; that just says “He was angry” then gets on with it. Sometimes, telling is better than showing. 

 

Likewise, things like the Wilberforce’s “fantastical machines” are left vague, and you can make them as horrific as you desire. Gee’s Halfmen of O trilogy has the same blunt style. Although it can come across harsh at first, it suits these stories with their difficult quests - and he does temper it with lovely descriptions of the landscape every once in a while. Other times, Gee does an Antonia Forest and just suggests what’s going on through dialogue, which has become one of my favourite writing techniques.

 

 

 

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Under the Mountain moves between perspectives seamlessly too. I wasn’t super keen on Mr Jones’s parts, with his grandfatherly worry and seriousness - it seemed like an interruption in what should have been just the kids’ story, and it took away some of the mystery. Sometimes I think it’s best for things to be only from one point of view, to make your connection to the protagonists really solid - like in E.T., where you hardly see an adult’s face till the end of the movie.

 

Overall, though, the story focuses on the twins’ point of view, and I like how this emphasises the differences between them. When Mr Jones magically guides their bodies to help them climb Rangitoto fast and silently in the dark, Rachel feels she’s gliding along with ease, but reluctant Theo feels he’s in a nightmarish dance he can't break free of. As the night wears on, their attitudes shift: Rachel is ready to give up, and Theo is eager for revenge for the way their lives have been twisted out of their control.

The twins aren’t perfect - and the Wilberforces aren’t portrayed as wholly evil either.

 

Rachel in particular is conflicted by her role in bringing an alien species to extinction. They’re only doing what’s in their nature, she thinks. Isn’t there another way? Aside from Mr and Mrs Wilberforce, there are other slug creatures who are almost affectionately dubbed “baby Wilberforces”. At the end of the book, the sense of grief isn’t only for what the twins have lost, but for the Wilberforce family, the last of their kind, huddling together in despair before they face oblivion.

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I like how this book blurs the boundary between quaint adventure and cosmic horror.

Like the boy-wizard series whose author must not be named, Under the Mountain takes you from a fun kids’ fantasy to something much darker. The tame cliches of magic stones and haunted house contrast starkly with the moral ambiguity and death-of-the-universe tone the book takes on by the end, but it also reflects how Rachel and Theo irreversably change themselves, in a grim coming-of-age way. It’s subtly done, and not what I was expecting. I think that these days books are more set in their marketing niches, and back in the day writers just did what they wanted with less regard for genre or audience.

 

Skimming through the book again to find passages to take photos of, I was also struck by the amount of clever foreshadowing peppered in, which must be even more rewarding on a re-read - like Rachel’s remark about Rangitoto being Māori for “bleeding sky”.

 

Anyway, that's more than enough analysis - let's get to the end. Be warned: there be spoilers ahead.

 

 

You saved the world ... but at what cost?

I remember being confused by the movie’s triumphant climax - they activate the stones, and all the volcanoes are set alight ... including the one that their auntie and uncle live on the crater of. It felt odd to brush over the fact that half the city’s been Pompeii’d, but the book doesn’t shy away from this at all. In fact, I was shocked by how brutal it is.

 

Maurice Gee has no happy ending for Rachel and Theo. Their victory over the Wilberforces is abrupt and apocalyptic - and it’s Theo’s fault, for not following the plan. Mr Jones, his life force used up, evaporates into the wind, leaving the twins utterly alone in a rain of ash. They watch the destruction, weeping, and the book ends.

 

No wonder Under the Mountain made such an impression. This is an ending that'll stick in your mind and make you fret about what happens after. Were their family caught in the blast? Could they have escaped? Will Theo and Rachel ever be able to forget what they’ve seen and done?

If you’ve ever been to the room in Auckland Museum that’s done up like a lounge with a simulated view of Rangitoto erupting out the window, you’ll understand the primal, too-close-to-home fear that this story evokes. As someone who already has lifelong recurring dreams about exploding volcanoes (blame the dinosaur movies), maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t read Under the Mountain when I was a kid. It might’ve turned a morbid curiosity into a full-blown phobia. But that’s what I like about this book - it respects kids and their fears.

For all its sci-fi elements, Under the Mountain deals with real, believable fear, and does it with total honesty. The ending is tragic and bleak - but it’s also cathartic and awe-inspiring. After all that the characters have gone through, anything less would have just been underwhelming.

Katharine Kerr’s tales of Deverry: An engrossing series as masterfully woven as the Celtic knots that inspired its twisting timelines

What’s the plot?

Centuries ago, young prince/trainee sorcerer Nevyn makes a huge mistake that leads to the deaths of three people he loves - and after a rash vow to the gods to not rest until he sets things right, the now-immortal Nevyn reunites with their reincarnations every generation as he slowly struggles to complete his vow.

Where’s it from? 

Kerr is an American author, though Deverry is a very Welsh world.
The original ‘Act’ of four books began in 1986 and wrapped up nicely in 1990, but additional stories have kept on coming, with the 16th book published in 2020.

Three words: Intricate, believable, alive
Re-readable? Absolutely - it might just take you a while

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Christmas holidays are almost here, which means it must be time for a post about Katharine Kerr. My memories of the Deverry books will always be associated with the sandy beach days and hot summer nights that I first encountered her world of destiny and danger, forests and fortresses, honour and betrayal, spirits and sylphs.

My mum and dad have been into Deverry since forever, and all through my childhood their bedside tables were decorated with the latest book in the series, always with funky cover art of some shirtless sword-toting warrior or a mystical elf in swathes of jewels (and don't forget the dragons swooping past in the background). But of course, you shouldn’t judge Deverry by its pulpy fantasy covers. When I finally sat down to try the first book, Daggerspell, I was immersed in an intricately-plotted adventure that soon earned itself a place on the top of my bookshelf alongside my all-time favourites.

I don’t usually seek out high fantasy novels, but it’s not the swords and sorcery that make Deverry compelling - it’s the fantastic writing style. 

 

In good old Earthsea fashion, Katharine Kerr skilfully sets up the kingdom of Deverry, starting with a rainy inn yard in an isolated village and slowly revealing to us the wider world and neighbouring lands. The culture draws heavily on ancient Welsh myths and history, from the woollen brigga people wear to the hierarchies of the ruling system and their pagan religious practices; there’s even a pronunciation guide in the front of the books to help you know what Rhodry and Cwm Pecl and Eldidd are supposed to sound like. And it has maps, of course, as all good fantasies must.

Deverry’s magic system - dweomer - is excellently described, giving sensitive characters cold touches of premonition at vital moments, and greater powers to those who dedicate their lives to its study. Most people in Deverry don't believe in such things, but through dweomer-master Nevyn we’re introduced to a world of elemental forces, risky transformations, and cheeky gnomes - not to mention the all-important concept of one’s wyrd, the fates that are up to us to embrace or deny.

And despite the New Age-y astral projection vibes, Deverry is always firmly rooted in reality: The far-off dust plumes of pursuing riders on a country road; orange circles on a shirt where chain mail has rusted; clouds glowing like pennants in a sunset sky. 

The web of relationships between the characters are another major highlight that gives the series so much life, making them seem real when the plot could easily paint them as legendary figures. Parents and children, old friends, new lovers, uneasy allies and more shine in all their messy, ever-evolving complexity. 

The drama builds all through the first arc - Jill and her beloved berserker prince Rhodry go from fending off bandits to taking on the master of the dark dweomer in his far-flung island hideaway, giving up everything to follow their wyrds. Eloquent elf minstrel Salamander makes a fun sidekick, flaunting his dweomer powers in the guise of ‘magic’ shows, and a main character goes missing for almost half the third book with not even the reader let in on their whereabouts (only to show up later with amnesia!), which is always suspenseful.

Like most of my favourite books, Deverry combines magic and mystery with romance and sword fights, its action encompassing slick tavern brawls and horseback battles alike. Most importantly, it comes with a great dose of humour - and fun swearing. 

“By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!”

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So what can you expect in Daggerspell? Quite a lot, actually - jealous brothers, exiles, elf archers, family secrets, traitor lords, love triangles, dead parents, magic daggers ... But although Deverry features a ton of recognisable genre tropes (Kerr started writing after getting into fantasy games in the ‘70s), the heart of the series is its reincarnation theme. 

Each book’s main plot revolves around a set of characters in the present, and dives into multiple flashback sections along the way of those same characters in their previous lives. 

Not only does this show how actions in the past ripple through time and influence characters beyond their deaths, but it’s a clever way of retelling the same story over and over in infinitely varied ways.

The protagonist of the main storyline, Jill, is the daughter of a silver dagger (a man who fights for pay rather than for a lord and for honour), and soon takes up a silver dagger life herself. In her past incarnations we see her as a powerless noblewoman, a bard’s wife, a warrior priestess, and even a man in a warband, as time and again she strives for more control over her life. Meanwhile, the men around her vie for her affections, while the immortal sorcerer Nevyn looks on, the only one who remembers the cycles of incarnations that have gone before.

Will Jill’s competing admirers ever find a non-violent end to their pursuit of her? Will she ever accept her innate talents and become the sorcerer she was always meant to be?

These themes are reflected in the structure of the books too, with past lives flowing in and out of the main story - some flashbacks weave between several books before they're tied up. There are no chapters in the Deverry books, only parts, each one introduced by an old saying or an in-world quote from a sorcerer's teachings. This unbroken format gives a good sense of the flow of time, and definitely encourages serious reading sessions - a lot of the time you just have to put your bookmark down wherever there's a nice section break.

The time-jumping nature of the narrative also works well for showing how the world changes, from the 7th-century dun where royals shiver in stone halls to the 11th-century ladies’ chambers decked out with real glass windows and exotic carpets. There’s a lot of political intrigue in the series, too, which is done very well - the latest book is almost entirely talking and scheming, and somehow it’s a page-turner still.

If there is a downside to jumping into Deverry, it probably is its length and the divided nature of the flashback subplots. 

Although I love to go back to certain sections of the novels, I’m yet to fully reread them because of how complicated some of the plotlines get. There’s one cool flashback involving a boy who gets set up to be a prophesied king with the help of Nevyn and his dweomer buddies (very Dune), and another where a warrior left for dead pretends to be his own ghost as part of a revenge plot, but I can’t quite remember which of the many books they’ve been split across.

After the main arc of the first four books, the story also slows down a lot; it’s neat to see more of the world, like the fae realm and elf society, and to see what the characters get up to as they get older (and into their next incarnations), but on the other hand it gets a bit rough when the kingdom is beset by yet another threat. As Mr Incredible says, “Sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know?”

Around the seventh installation, there’s a siege that drags on over multiple books, and after that saga was concluded in the 11th one I’ve taken a well-deserved break from Deverry. Sixteen books is a big commitment! I have read the latest one, however, which is set centuries after the 15th book and sort of reboots the series - it was really interesting to see how the world grows into its Renaissance era, and it’s a good standalone too.

 

If you’re the kind of reader who likes their endings (happy or otherwise) to stay as they are, then I might recommend stopping after the fourth book, Dragonspell, which concludes the first (dare I say best) arc. I was devastated by the ending and didn't agree with it at first, but after letting it simmer in my brain I understood why things had to happen the way they did, and appreciate it all the more.

But if you want to know whether the 15th book is worth it, well ... you'll have to ask my mum and dad.

“If you write in the sand with a stick, soon the waves and wind will wash away the words. Such are the mistakes of ordinary men. If you cut words into stone, they remain forever. A man who claims the dweomer becomes a chisel. All his misdeeds are graved into the very flank of time itself.” So does Deverry deserves to be graved into the hearts of all true fantasy fans.

Ursula K. Le Guin's Tombs of Atuan: A classic fantasy masterpiece that gives you everything you want and then some

What’s the plot?

In an isolated temple in the mountainous deserts of Atuan, young Tenar is raised to be the priestess of the nameless gods, and guards the underground labyrinth of their ancient tombs. But when a thief appears with forbidden magic to seek the labyrinth's greatest treasure, Tenar begins to question everything she’s ever known ...

Where’s it from?

This was first published in the US in 1970 - it’s the unplanned semi-sequel to A Wizard of Earthsea which came out a few years earlier.

Three words: Thrilling, immersive, timeless.

Re-readable? Oh yes.

*   *   *

One of my controversial book opinions is that it’s fine (and sometimes better) to read a series out of order, and Earthsea is a fine example.

My mum gave me a copy of the full Earthsea Quartet when I was a teenager - an intimidatingly dense volume of small, close-set text, with generic silhouettes of men and dragons on the cover. I knew that this was supposed to be one of the best fantasy series of all time; I was semi-familiar with the story thanks to the forgettable Studio Ghibli adaptation; I used to have far lower standards for books and would read anything I could get my hands on. Still, no matter how many times I opened up the volume over the years, I could never get past the first five pages. A Wizard of Earthsea, it seemed, was not for me.

But I’ve always been a fan of reading things out of order (a trait probably instilled from a childhood of reading whatever random books happened to be available at the library). I think of spoilers more as DIY flash-forwards, an extra sprinkle of foreshadowing - it’s interesting to bounce around a series hearing hints of earlier books, getting the gist of what happens without knowing exactly how things unfold. You don’t miss much, especially if the story’s well written - and then if you really want you can go back to the beginning and experience it like a prequel. 

All this to say: for some reason I had the notion to try going back to Earthsea - but this time, I’d skip straight to the spooky-sounding second book, The Tombs of Atuan. 

And I loved it.

I think a lot of contemporary stories are very aware of their genre, embracing or subverting tropes in a way that relies on the audience already having a good knowledge of what to expect. But The Tombs of Atuan is totally different from modern fantasy.

 

The first thing that struck me was how ancient the story felt. It's like something straight out of One Thousand and One Nights - a tale full of truth as well as magic.

Aside from a bit of wizardry later on, the majority of the book could almost be realist fiction. Tenar’s upbringing is told through a well-paced montage of rituals and chores, lentils and porridge, fishing and weaving - things that have been part of people’s daily lives all through history. It’s a very grounded world, which makes Tenar’s strange life as a chosen priestess all the more believable - and tragic, knowing that similar things have probably happened in real life.

The Tombs of Atuan is a cool example of the ever-appealing ‘double fantasy’, where you simultaneously wish that you could live in the characters’ world while being relieved that you don’t have to go through what they suffer. 

Who wouldn’t want to be destined from birth to be high priestess of nameless powers, untouchable and fearless, spending your days unearthing forgotten secrets in a place no-one else can enter? And yet how terrible, to be cut off from all others, to forever serve an empty throne, to be nameless yourself and be mistress of nothing but the dark and the dead. 

The book paints these opposites wonderfully - we feel Tenar’s boredom and loneliness as the days and years of her life pass by without change, and feel torn by guilt when she exercises her priestly duty of choosing how three prisoners are to die, an especially chilling scene. But Tenar’s life isn't completely dark. It’s lit up by apples shared with a friend, legends around a fire on a stormy night, sunset over distant mountains, games played in a courtyard. Tenar is just as keen as we are to see the labyrinth, and once it’s introduced as a setting we spend most of the rest of the book exploring it.

Even the tombs themselves are a source of excitement - but at the same time these moments of curiosity and awe are shadowed by despair. Tenar puts off going to the room of the greatest treasures, because - not that she admits it to herself - how could she live then, with nothing left to look forward to? What’s the point of being mistress when your domain is buried underground, and the only place you can be independent is alone? Le Guin poses these questions subtly, never outright, but always bubbling beneath the surface.

In a way I’m glad I didn’t read this when I was younger - I would have liked it, for sure, but I wouldn’t have appreciated it on the same level I do now. If I was still in high school or uni, I’d be spoiled for choice for essay material. You could connect the dark, unseen labyrinth to the twisting depths of the psyche, or ponder what its eventual downfall might have to say about feminine rage. You could, as Le Guin does herself in the book’s afterword, think about how Tenar has power over others but no power over her own life. You could interpret their belief that she’s the reincarnation of the original priestess as representing how women’s lives have been stifled over untold generations in ways that echo into the present. It’s no surprise that the book’s sparked extensive debates about how/whether it’s feminist ever since it was published.

I’ve never wanted to annotate a book until now - you could analyse not only every chapter but every passage, it's so richly layered and thought provoking. 

And, of course, you can enjoy it as a brilliantly-written fantasy - in terms of pure adventure, it’s right up there with The Princess Bride. I went into The Tombs of Atuan with cautiously low expectations, but boy did it deliver on its promises. A bottomless pit is fallen into; treasure chests are opened; dark caves are illuminated and ancient gods awoken. Every Chekhov’s gun is fired, everything you wonder about gets cleverly revealed and neatly wrapped up.  It's probably a good thing I watched the adaptation before reading the book, otherwise I would have been so disappointed by how underwhelming the movie was, especially when the tombs are so reminiscent of the mine tunnels and abandoned castle in Ghibli's Laputa.

After giving up on a pile of disappointing books earlier this year, I was pleased to finally find a story that had my two book must-haves: characters that you care about, and a talented writer who can skilfully guide you through the story. Tenar is a compelling protagonist, and a main appeal of the book is watching her grow. Her dynamic with the mysterious thief - Ged of the first book, now grown up - is also great, and I loved how they slowly came to trust each other. Ged may be a wizard, but in Tenar’s domain he’s at her mercy, and they both have to rely on each other if they’re ever to escape the tombs. The stakes are high - death, and things even worse than death.

Characters we care about? Check! And a talented writer? You bet. Right on the first page when Le Guin describes Tenar as a toddler “running and bobbing like a bit of thistledown blown over the darkening grass” I could picture it exactly, and knew I was in good hands. The Tombs of Atuan is full of excellent metaphors, similes, and evocative descriptions, which never feel out of place. The sentences flow naturally, and every action has consequences that drive the plot and amp up the tension. Unlike the weirdly detached narration of the first book, we’re right there with Tenar, and the simple language makes the emotions super punchy. Like Antonia Forest, Le Guin has a knack for efficient dialogue too, and doesn’t weigh down her writing with any unnecessary words.

 

The world of Atuan is built up effortlessly, from its customs and gods to its politics and history. My only niggle with this book is that the early mentions of directions made me pause for a bit to suss out the geography in my head (the edition from my mum even has a map of the labyrinth in it, which is pretty funny considering it's supposed to be an impenetrable place of darkness that no-one but Tenar can navigate).

I love how Le Guin withholds certain bits of information, one of my favourite writing techniques. A lot of the time things are left unsaid, for us to read between the lines - like how Tenar must feel when she enters the tombs for the first time and is forced to crawl like a dog to the skirts of the elder priestess to find her way out. Other times, bigger things are unseen. We only see Ged from Tenar’s point of view, for example - what goes through his head when he’s trapped in the labyrinth for days on end? How does he weave his spells to keep the nameless gods at bay? Where does he go when he does his astral projecting thing at the end of the book? And what exactly is squirrelled away in the attics and basements and alcoves of the tombs? It’s all left to our imagination, and that’s where the real magic of storytelling lies.

“She watched him, and never could she have said what was in her heart as she watched him, in the firelight, in the mountain dusk ...” 

I was also impressed by the way the book deals with what happens after ‘the end’. Tenar's decision to free Ged - and herself - isn't easy, and she struggles with that choice even after it's made. As I saw noted in another review, a lesser book would conclude after the story’s climax, but Le Guin keeps us with the characters for a few chapters more as Tenar faces the new challenge of how she is to live her life in the world beyond the tombs, which makes the ultimate ending feel much more earned. And despite my insistence on reading the last page of books first, I was still so moved by the last sentence - which perfectly mirrors the opening line of the book - that I actually cried ... and immediately went online to buy my own copy.

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I sometimes wonder what works of art people must be creating right now that I'll one day be obsessed with, and sometimes that obsession turns out to be a book that was written long before I was born.

It’s always fascinating to read a book that's the ‘grandparent’ of a genre - you get to uncover the original things that dozens of later creators were inspired by. I had no idea that the ‘true names have power’ trope came from the Earthsea books. I’ve seen it so often, from Spirited Away to the Deverry cycle, that I always thought it was something from myth and superstition - which I’m sure it was to begin with - but it turns out it was Ursula Le Guin who popularised the power of names for a whole generation of writers. You can also really see her influence on Neil Gaiman, in those old-style sentences like “Full of gold, and the swords of old heroes ... and bones, and years, and silence.”

I really like that Ged is described as dark-skinned, and I agree with other people's criticism of publishers for hardly ever depicting him like that in cover art. It’s great that this masterpiece of fantasy has a dark-skinned hero, but awful that you’d never know that unless you read the books. Funnily enough, I imagined all the characters as vaguely South American or Middle Eastern because of the landscape of deserts and temples - only to later find out that Tenar is meant to be white, and that her people are apparently the pale minority of Earthsea.

*   *   *

On one hand, I’m tempted to read the rest of the series - it’s cool how each one is set years, if not decades, apart, and I want to see more of Ged and Tenar. On the other hand, I know that the six Earthsea books have a reputation for being quite different from one another - when I checked out an online discussion to see what one I should look to next, every single commenter had ranked the books differently. Besides, I kind of prefer Ged as a side character, with his heroic deeds an intriguing backstory rather than a central plot.

And I guess I’m worried that perhaps none of the other books can quite live up to The Tombs of Atuan ...

This the rare kind of book that keeps you up at night, a book you carry with you just for company, a book you get reminded of when listening to song lyrics. This is fantasy - and storytelling - at its very best.

Antonia Forest's marvellous Marlows: A postwar kids’ series with depth, humour, suspense, and characters who are utterly real

What's the plot?

When the Marlows inherit their ancestral home, a huge seaside farm, all sorts of shenanigans ensue - from the simple joys of falconry and midnight horse treks to the perils of railroad rescues and attempted kidnappings, amongst the everyday fun and conflict of family dramas and boarding school life.

Where’s it from?

The author’s a true-blue Englishwoman (writing under a pen name), and the books are set in a fictionalised south coast countryside, written between the 1940s and the 1970s.

Three words: Relatable, exciting, nostalgic
Re-readable? For sure!

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Welcome back to the stacks!

I’ve been taking my time writing a post about the Marlow books, because there’s so much to say about them that it’s all quite daunting. Lacklustre books are easy to review, but where do you start with books that are excellent on every level, their tapestries of story so well-woven that you can barely find a loose thread to pick at?

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Antonia Forest’s Marlow family series is a fitting first review for this blog, since it’s one that’s definitely spent a long time hidden in the depths of the library stacks. 

I only discovered them thanks to my English Lit course on children’s 20th century fantasy, where the fifth book Peter’s Room was a set text (likely a much-loved book from my lecturers’ youth). Even then, they had to send away to a special publisher, Girls Gone By, to request a reprint for the class, and the series has since gone out of print again - even the stacks don’t have the full series, unless you request some interloans.

 

To tell the truth, I didn’t fall in love with Peter’s Room right away - probably because of the fact that it was jumping into the series mid-way through. (Though I admire the fact that Forest never holds her readers’ hands, instead trusting that we’re smart enough to suss out for ourselves who’s who and what’s what - these may be books about kids, but they’re certainly not just for kids.)

Peter’s Room is set during the snowy Christmas holidays at the Marlow farm, which begins with the discovery of an abandoned attic in an old barn. Industrious 15 year-old Peter soon transforms it into a hideaway where a gang of Marlow siblings and their friend/crush Patrick invent a fantasy world to roleplay in (like a proto-Dungeons and Dragons), inspired by the Brontes’ Gondal lands and the historical relics up in the attic. Out in the real world, there’s hunting and a Twelfth Night dance and a fuss about a party dress, interspersed with dramatic excerpts from the imaginary adventure plotline that the kids are living out in the attic, their alter-egos dabbling in all sorts of treachery and intrigue.

 

Once I’d gotten used to the leisurely pace and the long chapters (not to mention the super fun 1950s slang, which deserves a whole post of its own), the story and characters got well and truly stuck in my head. Wishing that characters could be your friends is probably the best response you could have to a story, and I felt that for all the Marlows, from full-of-bravado-but-scared-of-heights Peter to insufferable-yet-sympathetic baby-of-the-family Lawrie. The book has stayed on my shelf long after graduating, which prompted me to give the rest of the series a go - and I’m so glad I did.

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The quality of the writing is so good that after reading three of them this year, I’ve given up on a dozen other books because they couldn't match the standard set by Antonia Forest.

 

First it was the third book, Falconer’s Lure, in which 13 year-old Nicola - who’s usually the protagonist - takes up falconry with neighbour Patrick, and the rest of the family prepare for a sort of countryside talent show that involves everything from high-diving rivalries to the horrors of remembering your lines in a singing competition, culminating in a horse-riding show where Nicola goes up against a cheater with a vendetta who’s mistaken Nicola for her identical twin Lawrie … classic stuff. The falcons cause their own conflict too, always getting lost or into danger - and this book doesn’t shy away from dealing with death, either, whether animal or human. The plot of these books may sound a bit quaint or twee, but in style and substance they’re anything but.

 

Apparently Forest wrote this one because she wanted to write a pony book, but her publishers suggested choosing a different, less-overdone animal! It was a great idea, though - learning about the ancient art of falconry through Nicola is fascinating.

As an aside, you don’t have to read these books in order - it was fun to reread Peter’s Room and now know what the girls are referencing when they come home from boarding school buzzing about the fallout from End of Term. I wouldn’t really recommend starting with the first one, Autumn Term, however - it’s a bit tame compared to the others, as it was initially written as a stand-alone book.

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The Marlow books are unique in that they’re not just holiday-hijink or boarding school books, but both, with the more adventurous escapades happening in between the term-time books.

 

End of Term - book four - was next out of the stacks for me, and gave me vivid flashbacks to the time when school was your whole life and being snubbed for a role in the play in favour of someone who can’t act was the most unjust thing in the world. Antonia Forest writes the intricacies of relationships brilliantly - everyone is perfectly drawn, and the little interactions between them are fully realistic (and often very funny). There’s the painfully shy new girl, the conniving scouts leader, the quietly witty prefect, the hot-and-cold ‘best friend’, the fearsome form teacher, the impressionable first-years, the useless head girl, the netball team outcast, the clingy companion … Add in twin-swapping shenanigans, a dog rescue, and an overly-ambitious Christmas play, and you’ve got a heck of a lot of fun and drama ready to unfold - and that’s just a taste of what the gang gets up to in this book. Who knew a single term of school could be so thrilling?

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Then there’s the seventh installation, The Ready Made Family, which I liked much more than I was expecting. In this one, studious eldest daughter Karen suddenly drops out of Oxford to marry a man twice her age and moves back to the family farm with him and his three young children in tow, much to the shock of the rest of the Marlows.

 

What makes The Ready Made Family my possible favourite is that it shows Forest’s talent not only as a character writer or school stories author, but as an action writer.

 

 

As Nicola and Peter reluctantly take on babysitting duties for their new younger siblings-in-law, there’s three major ticking-timebomb setpieces where they court disaster: a sunken ship, a railroad near-miss, and an attempted kidnapping when one of the kids runs away and is found by her ‘uncle’. All three - especially the last one - are genuinely scary and masterfully suspenseful. I’m super keen to get my hands on The Thuggery Affair now, which is set over a single weekend where Peter, Lawrie, and Patrick foil some drug-smugglers.

 

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The Ready Made Family was written in the late ‘60s and, just like Tintin or The Simpsons, it's a great example of a ‘floating timeline’ - I love how they talk about colour TV and miniskirts even though they're technically still living in 1949 and the farm's only just been decommissioned as a WWII army base.

 

I've seen other people describe the Marlows as a ‘stiff upper-lip’ bunch, which is pretty accurate - there's one or two scenes where a kid gets hit by an adult and it’s brushed off as impolite but tolerable, which is quite disconcerting as a modern reader. That’s one of the strange things you get when reading books from a few generations back, although there's also more fun things like reading about how telegrams work, what to do if you get stranded at the wrong train stop pre-cellphones, or what the heck a Twelfth Night party is.

Another cool thing that adds touch of realism is the references to other works of literature - the Marlows argue over whether they're too young for Jane Austen, debate what happens at the end of Childe Roland, make fun of lame poems, and have in-jokes about childhood books that I've never even heard of. Sometimes Forest even pokes fun at the genre by having characters imagine what might happen if they were in a novel, before shaking their heads and reminding themselves that this is ‘real life’.

 

If I was British myself, maybe I’d have stronger feelings about the vague classism in these books (the Marlows eventually acquire a cook, a maid, and several horses), but as a New Zealander these aspects seem more like just an interesting part of a far-off long-ago world.

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Lastly, I’ve got to mention Antonia Forest's skill at dialogue and description. Half the time, she doesn't even use dialogue tags - that’s how easy it is to tell who’s talking, where they are, and what they're feeling. It’s incredibly succinct. But when she needs to, she’ll give us an evocative description of a lonely moonlit field or clattering dining hall to give the scenes an extra breath of life. Another thing done very well is the setting - you can imagine exactly where everything is in the landscape and in the Marlow house.

I also love how Forest describes people’s thoughts and inner lives, in ways that are so simple yet so universally relatable. Journalist Lucy Mangan put it perfectly when she said ‘When I first came across CS Lewis’s adage, ‘I read to know that I am not alone’, it was the Marlows I thought of’. Judging by the collection of other wonderful reviews, in print and online, I'm not alone in my belief that Antonia Forest deserves to be more widely appreciated beyond the smallish circle of us lucky enough to have found her books.

These are one of the few books that I recommend to anyone, no matter whether or not you have a particular fondness for British kids’ books. It’s simply fantastic writing and fantastic characters, and you won’t regret letting these stories set up a home in your head.