Book Review Saturday – ‘The Skull in the Wood’

Oh, thank goodness for this book. Thank goodness.

Image: sandragreaves.com

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed good, solid, decently scary, folklore-tinged, well-written storytelling until I read this book, Sandra Greaves’ debut novel. Published late last year by the wonderful Chicken House, it’s a gem. I hope the author is planning to keep writing, and that there are plenty more stories where this one came from.

The novel is narrated through the alternating viewpoints of two primary characters, thirteen-year-old cousins Matt and Tilda, who are forced to live together during a particularly charged and emotional time in Matt’s life. His parents have just separated, and his father has removed himself entirely from the family, leaving Matt to deal with his mother’s new boyfriend Paul (the ‘four-eyed pillock’, as Matt memorably describes him on page 1.) Matt, understandably, struggles to cope. He decides to decamp to his uncle’s house – the widower of his mother’s late sister – in order to get some space. This brings him into close contact not only with Tilda, but with Kitty – his bubbly, beautiful five-year-old cousin who is, in so many ways, the focal point and the heart of the story.

Among the new people he meets on Dartmoor (for this is where his uncle and cousins live) is Gabe, the handyman neighbour, an older man who is in touch with the local folklore. Gabe is a strange and slightly odd character, interesting and layered and eccentric, and I loved him. It’s from him that Matt hears about Old Scratch Wood, a scrubby area of woodland, apparently the oldest in England, which lies some miles away across the moor. Gabe warns him off going there, which – of course – has the effect of making Matt want to see it as soon as possible. Tilda is instructed to bring him, and – during the course of their attempts to frighten one another half to death inside the spooky old wood – they discover something strange, buried deep in the long-undisturbed soil. This strange object starts to have an effect not only on Matt and Tilda and their relationship to one another, but also the continued existence of Tilda’s family. It is so slow and gradual that the children don’t understand that a larger force, a corrosive force, is at work, but Gabe knows better. He repeatedly tries to warn the children about the ‘gabbleratchet,’ a gathering of infernal darkness heralded by birds; at first, of course, they have no time for what they perceive as nonsense, but they soon learn that they’re mistaken to treat it so lightly. Gabe has seen the gabbleratchet once before, and he knows exactly what to look for…

This was a delicious story – and I mean ‘story’ in the old-fashioned sense of the word, a satisfying read which ticks all the boxes and sends the customer home singing, with no bells or whistles or unnecessary faff. It had everything I adore in a book, and more. I loved the mingling of the supernatural – and the darn spooky supernatural, at that – with the ordinary, everyday existence of the characters; I loved the ‘city boy’ Matt and his inability to get into the flow of life on a farm. I adored beautiful Kitty and her sparkly, sunny ways. I even liked Tilda, bruised and battered since the death of her mother, forced to take on too much responsibility, afraid that the life she knows and loves is about to be taken from her – and with nobody upon whom to focus her anger besides her cousin.

In so many ways this story reminded me of Alan Garner’s work; it’s not in the same league in terms of language, at least for me, but it definitely comes from the same mindset. It features so much stuff I love, which I also find in Garner’s work: a traditional setting, taking in folklore and folk wisdom (I loved the ‘gabbleratchet’, a version of which is also found in Garner’s majestic ‘The Moon of Gomrath’); confused and frightened children facing down a supernatural power vastly superior to themselves; innocence threatened, and deep family secrets coming to the fore.

Image: amazon.co.uk

The central motif of the story – the actual skull itself, which has lain in Old Scratch Wood for so many years – is thrillingly spooky. I loved the way Sandra Greaves uses the characters’ inability to appreciate the changes in the skull as a way of pointing out to the reader that it contains some deep and disturbing power, and I loved the way the gabbleratchet is described. It’s different, while remaining completely true to its traditional roots. A reader doesn’t need to be familiar with English – or, I suppose, British – folklore to understand or appreciate the power of the gabbleratchet, as it’s so well described and perfectly utilised within this story, but if you do, it can only help to heighten your appreciation for the finer details in the story. I loved, too, that the raising of the gabbleratchet is not the only problem the children face – there are also ‘real life’ issues for them to deal with, including separated or deceased parents, parents taking new partners, families with money worries, devastating illness and fears for the future, which end up being harder to sort out than the supernatural.

This book is well-written, expertly handled and perfectly realised. It has great pace and suspense, as well as emotional heft. I know it’s early days for 2014 yet, but I don’t expect to read many books this year which will top this one.

Highly recommended.

Book Review Saturday – The Father of Lies Chronicles

Happy Saturday, all!

This weekend’s book review post is more of a ‘series’ review, really. I’ve recently finished ‘Arthur Quinn and Hell’s Keeper’, the final book in Alan Early’s ‘The Father of Lies Chronicles’, and it’ll be tough to do a review of it without touching on the two books which came before it. So, I’ll jumble them all in together here and hope for the best.

Image: argosybooks.ie

Very few things in life please me more than finishing a series. I love trilogies, and – unlike a lot of readers – I love waiting for the second and third instalments in a sequence of books. I’ve been following Arthur Quinn’s adventures for a while now – you may remember me mentioning him way back in January – and it was great to finally get my hands on the wrap-up to his story, and to finally find out the answers to some of the questions that have always hung over the character: why was it Arthur who was chosen to stand against the gods? What happened to his mother? And, most pertinently: is it even possible to slay a god?

The series began with Arthur and his dad Joe facing the prospect of moving away from their home in Kerry just after the death of Arthur’s beloved mother. Joe’s job is bringing him to Ireland’s capital, and Arthur isn’t best pleased at having to leave behind everything he has known and loved. This first book (‘Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent’) introduces us to the Jormungand, the terrifying snake which circles the earth in Norse legend; it has slept beneath Dublin for a millennium, and in the course of works needed to build a tunnel for Dublin’s new underground railway, the creature is awoken accidentally. It is up to Arthur, and some new-found friends, to stand against the creature. The Jormungand is, of course, one of the three children of Loki, the trickster-god of Norse mythology; as well as dealing with the serpent, then, Arthur also has to cope with its father, who wants to unleash Ragnarok, or utter destruction, upon the world. We see how skilfully the terrifying character of Loki weaves his way into Arthur’s life, manipulating him without Arthur even being aware he’s doing it. It takes all of Arthur’s strength, and the help of a band of long-dead (now reanimated) Viking warriors to see off the World Serpent… but, of course, Loki manages to escape their clutches, because that is what he does best.

The second book, ‘Arthur Quinn and the Fenris Wolf’, introduces us to Fenrir, the second of Loki’s terrible children. In mythology, Fenrir ate the sun at Ragnarok, plunging the earth into darkness and despair; in the book, he is a man who has been tasked with building an army of wolves, one which will help Loki bring about the end of the world. New characters are introduced in this book, including the Lavender siblings, Ellie and Ex, whose motivations are never quite clear; we also meet Ice, a puppy which Arthur’s friend Ash risks her life to save, and who turns out to be far more than appearances would allow. The book concludes with a fantastic showdown between Loki and the children, where help arrives from an unexpected place, and Arthur makes a huge personal sacrifice to save the world, once again, from Loki’s wrath.

Finally, then, we come to the final book in the trilogy. ‘Hell’s Keeper’ is the goddess Hel, who is – in mythology – a horrifying half-alive, half-dead creature, the guardian of a realm of the same name, where the dead live. In this book, the idea of ‘Hel’ is used to powerful effect, even if the goddess herself only makes a brief appearance. The book begins back in Kerry, where Arthur has not had long to recover from the exertions of his last adventure before a strange dream invades the sleep of everyone on earth, all at the same time (with exceptions made for time-zones, and so forth!) The dream shows a child being kidnapped, and Arthur and his friends know who the kidnapper is – Loki. They know he is planning something, but clues are scant as to what, exactly, he’s up to. Then, the trickster god appears, and tells Arthur a heart-shattering secret which asks as many questions as it answers; even more terrifyingly, he uses his power to destroy Arthur in front of his friends. Luckily, however, this is not the end: Arthur is transported to Asgard, and from there to an alternative version of Dublin, one in which he has never existed. In this ‘Dublin’, Loki is king, and Arthur not only has to face him, but also some familiar-looking enemies from his past.

I really enjoyed this series of books, for a lot of reasons. I love books set in Ireland, and/or written by Irish authors, for a start; I really enjoy reading stories which take place in settings I’m familiar with. I also love books which breathe new life into old stories, and which make myths and legends come alive in the minds of their readers. I am a big fan of children’s books which base themselves in the rich cultural legacy of their country of origin, and for that reason alone, I knew I’d love this series.  In the final book, I particularly enjoyed the author’s imagining of an ‘alternative’ Dublin, and how an apocalyptic disaster might affect humanity – it was a dreadful picture, but there were some sparks of compassion and kindness there, too. I found myself delighted with the character of Arthur; his courage and self-sacrifice, as well as his love for his friends and family, were wonderful.

At times, however, the style of writing in ‘Hell’s Keeper’ was a little description-heavy and a lot of things were ‘told’ instead of ‘shown’; it’s hard not to do this, though, when you’re writing a book of this nature, which relies so much on ‘stories within stories’. I also felt that ‘Hell’s Keeper’ could have been a little more compactly edited – bits of it felt too long, to me, and I thought the other books had a better structure, and better pacing. Overall, though, this is a series I’d recommend for anyone 8+ who’s looking for a fresh voice in children’s fantasy fiction, and who wants to learn a bit about Dublin and the Vikings, to boot!

‘Loki’s Brood’, 1905, Emil Doepler.
Image: en.wikipedia.org

 

 

 

Mixed-Up, Muddled-Up

It’s Friday! So, that’s good news. In other good news, one of my best friends is coming to visit over the weekend, and I can’t wait to see her. In some further good news, I had my hair cut yesterday for the first time in three years (ahem), and it worked out rather well.

While I’m pleased with the end result, I now have two swingy-bangy bits of hair down either side of my face which are causing me a bit of consternation; I keep forgetting they’re there, so when they suddenly sweep down out of nowhere and waft into my line of vision, I tend to get a bit of a fright.

There you have it. A woman who is frightened of her own hair. What has the world come to?

Moving swiftly on. Today, I would like to talk about a book I recently read which seems to have caused very little in the way of a ‘splash’ in book-reviewing and book-blogging circles, which I think is a shame. It’s ‘Sorrowline’, written by Niel Bushnell. I believe it’s his first book, which makes the achievement all the greater.

Image: bookdepository.co.uk

I came across this book a few months ago when I googled the word ‘Timesmith’, which I was hoping to use in one of my own stories. I was hoping I’d be clever enough to have coined the term, but – of course – someone had got there before me! Niel Bushnell’s ‘Sorrowline’ is the first book in his ‘Timesmith Chronicles’, and it’s a really enjoyable read. It has only just been published – I’d been waiting for it for several months by the time I finally managed to buy it a couple of weeks ago – and it was worth the anticipation.

The central idea behind the book is that each person’s gravestone is connected to the day of their death by a ‘Sorrowline’ – a mysterious link made up of grief and memories, and in some cases the person’s fear and anger and pain at the time of their death – and a talented person can use this connection to travel back in time. Jack Morrow is our hero, and he finds himself being attacked by terrifying creatures in a London graveyard one night several years after his mother’s death. A strange man appears, claiming to be his grandfather. The man urges Jack to travel back to 1940, to meet him there as a teenager, and that together they’ll work out how to keep Jack safe. Jack doesn’t really have a choice but to obey, and so he does as he’s told – and it works, much to his shock. He’s a ‘Yard boy’, or someone with the power to travel through time from graveyard to graveyard.

When Jack travels back through time and meets up with Davey, his teenaged grandfather, I loved how Bushnell handled their relationship. Of course, Davey has no idea who Jack is and thinks the whole thing is an elaborate ruse – he even tries to make a bit of money by selling Jack out. Jack, despite being at a total disadvantage, uses his intelligence and strength of character to stand up for himself, work things out for himself and escape from the many tight corners he finds himself in. He’s no helpless 21st-century fool – he uses his knowledge of history to work out where he is and what’s happening, and he’s a resourceful, resilient young man. The gradual building of trust between the two boys is so cleverly handled that it makes the book’s conclusion all the more wrenching – but I’m not going to give away the twist, of course.

A further layer of loveliness is created by the author’s use of folklore. There is an object in the story, a precious object which is being sought by the terrible ‘baddie’ Rouland, called the Rose of Annwn. This set my mind spinning off through the legends surrounding Annwn, the Welsh otherworld, and the ballad which tells of the legions of men who went to claim it, of whom only seven returned. I really loved what Bushnell did with his Rose, and what it turns out to be. Rouland’s guard is a band of fierce undead warriors called the Paladin (another nod to the medieval, which is great), all of whom are female – that was a refreshing turn. I liked the character of Eloise, a rogue Paladin who commits herself to defending Jack and Davey no matter what the cost to herself. She’s a great creation, though occasionally her special powers and abilities (as a result of being an undead warrior) seem a bit too convenient. But that’s a tiny quibble.

Jack’s abilities to travel through time naturally lead him to think about his mother, and whether there’s anything he can do to keep her from dying. This is his primary motivation, and not finding the Rose of Annwn, even though he knows it’s also important to keep that huge treasure out of the clutches of Rouland. I really enjoyed the conclusion of this story, and how several plotlines were wrapped up while leaving enough to entice a reader back for Book 2. I often find myself confused and disappointed with time-travel stories, but not with this one. It all seemed to make sense and slot together, which made me admire Bushnell’s skill as a storyteller as well as his ability to create a beautiful character in Jack.

Overall, I thought this book was fantastic. It’s a book for children, of course, but there’s enough in it to please any audience. I recommend you give it a try, and spread the word!

Anyway, my fabulous hair and I are off to clean the house and get it ready for ‘comp’ny’. Hopefully I’ll get a bit of writing time, too.

Have wonderful weekends, y’all!

Monday, Monday

Happy Monday, if such a thing is possible.

I hope good weekends were had by all. I spent mine not doing very much, partly due to the fact that my husband is a bit under the weather, but also due to the fact that we were both exhausted, and a weekend of keeping a low profile just seemed like the way to go. I am feeling a bit cabin-feverish this morning, however – so, as soon as the sun comes up (any minute now!) I’ll head outside and get some fresh air. I wasn’t able to bring myself to go for a walk yesterday – slothing about the place seemed like a good idea at the time, but I regret it now.

I did manage to get some work done on the book, though, and I remain mystified by the fact that I’m finding so much in it, still, that needs immediate remedial work. I’m only about one-third of the way through, but I hope I’ll be finished by the end of this week. It’s incredible that all the things I’m spotting now were things I missed in previous re-reads, but it just proves the point that leaving your book alone for a little while between edits is the best thing you can do. I don’t think I’ll be changing anything major, structurally – I think it’s pretty much the way I want it to be in that regard – but I guess nothing is out of bounds, really. I’ve realised that editing can – and probably should – be a painful and extensive process, mainly because I also spent some time this weekend watching videos (well, they’re probably not ‘videos’, per se. I’m showing my age! They’re probably ‘podcasts’, or some such) on the brilliant website, http://www.writing.ie. Carlo Gébler, Sinéad Moriarty and Declan Hughes – three Irish authors – share their insights into writing, and the writing process, and their tricks and tips for overcoming common problems. I’d really recommend checking them out, if writing is your thing. I found them immensely useful. I was, however, a bit terrified by Carlo Gébler’s insight into editing – he recommended looking through your book to find entire sections which can be cut out, then re-reading to find chapters to cut, then re-reading to find paragraphs you can cut, and so on until you’re down to words. At that rate, I wonder how you’d have any book left at all, but what do I know. Perhaps he was just being descriptive and dramatic! His point, of course, is that nothing is sacred. The part of your book which you love the most will often be the first bit that an editor will rip apart – I’m sure, if I ever get to the point where another pair of eyes look over this WiP of mine, that this will happen to me, too.

Sometimes, when I’m doing other things and not thinking about my book at all (at least not consciously thinking about it – I don’t think my brain ever really lets it go properly), an image or a scene or even the actual words I’ve used at various points in the text will come back to me, and I’ll cringe at their terribleness. I’ll berate myself for using such a cheesy phrase, or for making such a horrible sentence, or creating such a ridiculous scene. And then I’ll read it over again, and realise it’s not as bad as I remembered. I wonder why this happens, sometimes, but I’ve learned not to worry about it any more. One thing I’ve learned over the last few months is that no matter how weird your thoughts get when you’re writing a book, that someone, somewhere, has experienced just the same thing. I live in hope that I’m not the only person who does this strange self-criticism.

As well as my editing, I also managed to read ‘Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent’, by Alan Early. This book has been on my radar for a while, because it’s set in Dublin (yay!) and it involves Norse mythology (double yay!) I love books that connect Ireland to the history of the Viking world, because I think the Irish role in the Viking story is too often overlooked. The book is also quite topical, as it takes the building of an underground railway in Dublin as a central plot point. At the moment, work is just beginning in Dublin on a light rail track which will run through the city centre, so it’s interesting to read the book in that light. The story is great – it has a strong core concept (the World Serpent, or Jormungard, has been lying dormant under Dublin for a thousand years, waiting to be woken), and I liked the characters. The author makes great use of Loki, the Trickster god, who can take on any appearance he likes, and I really enjoyed the author’s use of a theme-park which he calls ‘The Viking Experience’, particularly at the end of his story. There is a real Viking theme-park (of sorts) in Dublin, and the next time I visit I’ll be taking a very close look at some of the exhibits, now that I know how this book ends! I’m looking forward to the second book in the series, which involves the wolf Fenrir – and if the series continues the way it should, the third book will deal with Loki’s most terrifying child, the goddess Hel, who is half-alive and half-dead, and guards the Norse underworld. Let’s hope that’s the way the author intends to go! This book is great, and perfectly pitched at children from about the age of eight or so.

Right. Well, the sun is nearly up, so it’s time to make good on my promise. I’d better go and pull on my walking shoes, and get some air into these decrepit old lungs. Have a great day, all.

 

Image credit: hepatitiscnewdrugs.blogspot.com (via Google Images)

On Storytelling…

I’m thinking about storytelling this morning, and why we do it; I’m wondering about it because yesterday I came across another book, soon to be published, with a very similar premise to an idea I’ve been working on for a long time.  It’s not my WiP (which is a stroke of luck, sort of!) but something else I’ve written a lot of words on – something like 70,000 – and which I don’t really want to jettison out of hand.  I’m hoping there’s a nugget of story in there, something unique to me, which I can take and build on; something I can make which is different to what exists already.

I blogged recently about a similar theme – i.e. an idea which you’ve cherished and which you then see appearing in the world with a different author’s name on the cover – so I’m trying to take the positive out of it.  The positive is: I must be having good ideas.

But it’s funny, this impulse we have to tell stories, to make things up and to create plots and characters who do things, sometimes things we could or would never do ourselves.  What do we want to achieve as a result?  My ‘previous life’ as an academic who undertook research into texts and stories which were very old – as old as the language itself – means I’ve had an interest in this stuff for a long time.  Nowadays, perhaps, one of the impulses to tell stories is to achieve some sort of fame or immortality – to be remembered as a writer or a storyteller.  That’s a recent thing, in my opinion; so many of the most wonderful stories from the past are completely anonymous, including the vast majority of the medieval romances which I love so much.  I’ve often lamented the fact that we have no idea who wrote most of them, and I wish sometimes that they’d been a little more like modern writers and had thought to ‘sign’ their work.  The few ‘stars’ from the medieval period – Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Hoccleve, Malory, Marie de France (my personal heroine), among a small amount of others known only through the texts they wrote (like ‘the Gawain-poet’) – are vastly outnumbered by the writers of texts which display such skill and talent, and which are entirely free of any trace of their author.  That’s not to mention, of course, the texts which have been entirely lost; there’s no way of knowing how many are no longer in existence, what they were about, and who wrote them.  I lament, at times, for the lost hours of labour and love, sweat and toil, that went into the creation of works like these, of which no trace now remains.

The philosopher Richard Kearney once said something like: ‘We tell each other stories to tell each other who we are’.  If memory serves, he was talking about tales told around campfires by prehistoric men and women, who created the world around them every night after dark through stories and legends, but I think his insight can apply to everyone, and to every time.  In earlier ages, when the court poet (or ‘file’ in Irish) was one of the most important figures in the retinue because he knew the tribe’s history and was responsible for singing it into being, the idea of telling stories to bind a people together or, literally, tell them who they were, was vitally important.  It’s still important now.  It’s little wonder that the mythology of a country is closely guarded by its people, and why we are (or should be) very proud of our ‘national epic’; the English have the majestic Beowulf, the Finns their Kalevala, Icelanders their amazing Sagas and, in Ireland, we have our tales of the Sidhe, the Tuatha de Danann, the Firbolg, the Fomorians, Cuchulainn and Fionn MacCumhaill, among many others.  These sort of tales tell us what was important to our ancestors, what they feared and valued, the principles upon which they founded their societies.  For this reason, as well as the fact that they’re breathtaking works of art, they should be treasured by all of us.

Stories we tell can often say more about us than anything else – the kinds of characters we create betray our own fears and desires, our own loves and dreams; the kinds of situations they get into, and the means by which they make their daring escapes, tell the reader about the adventures dear to the author’s heart.  They might be seen as escapism and fantasy by a modern reader, but to earlier ‘readers’ (I should say ‘audiences’, as most early texts were, of course, recited aloud instead of read in private), they had the added thrill of being real.  When we read Beowulf now, we can caress the words describing the monster Grendel with our eyes and our minds, marvelling at the skill of the poet.  If we were listening to it around a fire in an eighth-century meadhall, we’d probably be more inclined to pull our cloak tighter around ourselves and hope desperately that tonight would not be the night that the monster would come calling.  We’d feel a greater and more passionate loyalty towards our fellow men, and a deep desire to protect our boundaries, our land, and pay homage to our king or liege-lord.  Perhaps that’s the real value of storytelling – it brings people together.  For the brief duration of the tale, every mind listening is focused on the same goal; every eye reading is in the same place, willing the characters on.  Characters, whether the irreproachable heroes of early sagas or the more fleshed-out, flawed human figures of later stories, carry the hopes and deepest desires of every human mind who has come into contact with them – including the mind that made them, and the minds who consume them.

But that’s just my two cents.  What other reasons are there for telling one another tales?  I can’t help but be influenced by my interest in the early periods of the world; has anyone any other thoughts?  Whatever stories you’re telling today, may they be good ones… Happy Tuesday to you all.