Burned is the
seventh of the Alex Verus novels, featuring a "diviner" (able to see
the future) in a magical dimension of modern London, hidden from mundane
citizens. I won't go through the background again as I've already reviewed the
first six books on this blog. I did comment in my review of the last book, Veiled, that the series seemed to be
running out of steam, but Jacka has ramped up the drama this time.
It is normal for someone to want Verus dead, but this time
it's the Light Council, the governing body for all of the Light mages; and not
just Verus is under sentence of death but his dependents as well; Luna, Anne
and Variam.
Verus has just one week to try to prevent the sentence being
carried out, but finds little help as he discovers that everyone seems to think
he is rejoining his hated old master, the Dark mage Drakh. All of his
determination and considerable deviousness seem to be in vain, but the
conclusion has a dramatic twist which puts the series onto a new track and has
me eagerly awaiting the next episode.
******************
I am slowly working my way through Alan Garner's work, this
time focusing on a set of four separate but linked stories (total page count
170). These are closely observed snapshots of episodes in time, set (like so
much of his writing) in the real Cheshire countryside in which the author has
always lived.
The first of the stories, The Stone Book, concerns a few days in the lives of a stone mason
and his daughter in Victorian times. The second, Granny Reardun, is set a generation later, featuring the grandson
of the stone mason at a critical point of his young life when he decides on his
future. The Aimer Gate comes next and
is set a further generation later, during the First World War, with the
great-grandson of the mason. The last is Tom
Fobble's Day, set in the Second World War, with the fourth generation of
young people making their own toboggans to slide down snow-covered hills and
collecting fragments of munitions dropped by the Luftwaffe bombers or from the
shells of the AA guns which fired on them.
The Stone Book
Quartet contains no magical elements, unlike most of Garner's work, but it
is nonetheless an example of magical prose. His writing is lyrical and
powerfully evocative, full of local customs and folklore and the rhythms of
dialect speech, and I was reminded of Cider
with Rosie by Laurie Lee, the famous memoir of a Cotswold childhood which
is high on any British list of favourite books. The stories may feature
children, but they probably appeal more to adults. Simply marvellous, and one
to be read again and again.
No comments:
Post a Comment