I really shouldn't - but Philip Reeve is such a great story teller. Within moments of opening one of his books, you are absorbed into his reality, which he fully furnishes and makes wholly believable. In "Larklight" we are in a Victorian world as seen through the eyes of a "Boys Own paper" hero with an annoyiong older sister, a deceased mother, and a semi-detached scientific father. Only difference is, they live in a Jules Verne/H.G. Wells outer space domicile, in a breathable aether that fills a universe full of planets easily reached by alchemical engines. But in this comfortable, British Space Empire of Kieller Dundee marmalade and Victorian engineering ingenuity lurks a great danger in the form of ten-legged spiders from Saturn. Oh. And pirates.
Thank goodness for the British Secret Service, and backbone, and stiff upper lips.
Even when writing for a younger audience than those that the "Mortal Engines" books are aimed at, Reeve never patronises. He never insults, and he never stoops to slipping in "adult" jokes, though there are nudging references for the more savvy of his junior readers.
Beautifully, and amusing, illustrated throughout by David Wyatt.
Unputdownability: like a Saturday morning serial, you can't wait for the next episode.
So many recommendations and good reviews so I thought I would give this one a spin, and it probably falls under the heading of "biggest disappointment of the year". Michelle Paver is a children's writer, and I'm sorry to say that it really shows. It is as if she has set out with a warning from her publishers not to frighten anybody too badly, and there's no chance of any bad dreams being initiated by this novel.
An amateur research team set out for the Arctic wilderness, and a string of misadventures reduces their number to one who carries on the project while waiting for the others to join back up with him. He feels lonely. He thinks he sees a ghost. Someone tells him the place is haunted. He does see a ghost. He runs away from the ghost.
The research is thorough and unfortunately, it tends to show - Paver doesn't miss many opportunities to shoehorn in a brand name, or a contemporary reference. But good research doen't necessarily make for good storytelling, and not for good adult storytelling. There is insufficient tension, the pace is frightfully slow, there is little real sense of menace, the "reveal" is in a dream, and even then only fitfully related so that the true horror is
so concealed as to be almost Lovecraftian, and not in a goosd way - you know how HPL was fond of saying that things were so gruesome that he couldn't describe them? Well, a bit like that.
Unputdownability : I only didn't put it down because I so dreaded having to pick it back up again.
