Railhead, by Phlip Reeve: reviewed by Sue Purkiss

Philip Reeve is a remarkable writer, with an imagination the size of one of the many planets he writes about in this book. I've read several of his Mortal Engines books, and also his Larklight series, for sightly younger readers: and I've been lost in admiration after reading all of them, at his exuberance and inventiveness and the sheer range of his characters and the worlds they explore.

Railhead is set in this universe, but far into the future. There are knowing and funny nods back to our time; Casablanca is referenced, and ancient earth languages, including Ancient Geek and Klingon. (Who knew?) In this 'world', travel among the planets takes place by means of trains. But these are no ordinary trains: these are trains with souls, which feel joy, love, sorrow and anger. And they are not the only sentient forms which Reeve creates. There are also the Hive Monks: hybrid beings made up of lots of beetles which somehow coalesce around a flimsy framework to form the simulacrum of a human being - and the Motoriks, dismissively known as 'Wire Dollies'. These are androids, not meant to be individuals with feelings - but one, Nova, is very individual indeed. Her quest for a soul is indicated by her creation of freckles to spoil the perfection of her 'skin'; like all of the characters, human or not, she is multi-layered and we come to care for her, to respond to her warmth and complexity.

The hero of the story is - at the beginning - a small-time thief called Zen Starling. He, like many a fantasy hero, soon finds out that he has a back-story and a destiny of which he has been hitherto unaware. He is plucked from obscurity by an ambivalent master-criminal named Raven, because he is uniquely qualified to infiltrate a powerful family called the Noons and steal from them something that Raven very much wants. But, being a hero, he is not inclined to meekly fall in with anyone else's plans, and everything goes horribly wrong.

This is a beautifully written book with a story that moves along with the pace of a high-speed train. The characters are complex and varied; there is humour, there is pathos, there is love. And all this in a world which Reeve has constructed with dazzling aplomb. In his 'ThankYou', at the end of the book, Reeve pays tribute to Sarah McIntyre, with whom he has written books for much younger readers: he says that she 'made me want to write more stories at a time when I felt ready to give up.' We must be very thankful to Sarah for this - because if this writer gave up, it would be a desperate waste of an extraordinary talent.

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Oliver And The Seawigs, by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

This is a bonkers delight of a book for children of about six to ten.  It’s a chubby, silken-covered, hardback of the size that used to be the reserve of hymn and poetry books, so sits very nicely in the hand.  That dramatic cover shows just the sort of fun and adventure and beautiful design that you are going to find inside the book, with most pages alive with illustration as well as text. 

Oliver And The Seawigs is written by Philip Reeve, more famously known for equally wildly imaginative but more serious works such as the Mortal Engines series and Here Lies Arthur.  Here he’s clearly enjoying himself immensely, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get a good story.  The bonkers plot involves islands that get up and walk to a place where they will compete for island leadership based on the best ‘wig’ of shipwrecks or fish or rubbish they can concoct, a sinister army of greasy green-furred and web-footed monkeys, an odd one out mermaid with bad eyesight, a teenager made angry by reactions to his girly name, and of course our hero, Oliver, and his unreliable explorer parents.  But the action is all pleasingly logical within the mad world created, and the plight of the characters surprisingly compelling and moving.  Why?  Because they have hopes and fears and problems of kinds that we can identify with.  There are bullies to be tackled by the children, and a monstrous human-eating island to be faced up to by timid bald little island Cliff.  And at the end Oliver is faced with his own double-longing; to be settled at home, but also to not leave Cliff and his mermaid and albatross friend.  Can the two be achieved at the same time?  Read the story and see!

Sarah McIntyre has done the very stylish and truly beautiful pictures.  She manages to combine a lucid depiction of story action with great humour, but it’s that quality of beauty that is a rarity in illustrations for novels for this sort of age.  More of this, please, publishers!  When Iris the Mermaid finally gets the glasses that enable her to see her world clearly for the first time, those glasses could have been pinched from Sarah McIntyre!  I suspect a lot of in-jokes in these pictures.  The enjoyment in creating this book was clearly mutual, by an exceptionally talented pair who are both both writers and illustrators. 

So this story is about as far as you can get from an ‘issues book’, and yet it would bring comfort and strength to children suffering bullying or needing glasses, and give pause for thought to those who do the bullying or are the parents who maybe don’t give enough attention to their child.  It’s a book that will, I think, be one of those books that stay with its readers, internally and externally, for life.

“Eeep!”  (Those blessed monkeys get everywhere!)

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There’s No Such Thing As Dragons by Philip Reeve: Penny Dolan

Opening a book by a favourite author is a mixed moment. Will it be as good as other titles or differently good – or just that tiny bit disappointing?

           

This book doesn’t at first suggest a brave new idea.  It is set in a kind of classic mid-European past and its hero is Ansel, a mute unwanted ten-year old boy bought as a servant by Brock the Dragon-Slayer, a man with a touch of faded glamour about him.

           

As gentle, likeable Ansel follows Brock, he discovers that Brock hides a supposed “dragon skull” in his baggage. He is confidence trickster who has never yet seen a dragon and now he is off to fleece those who live in the villages below the legendary Drachenberg mountain.

Reeve’s adults are not entirely nice people. The village already has a “saviour” in the form of Father Flegel of the red leather boots, who claims to keep the dragon away by the power of his prayers although the villagers have also made their own plans.

As Brock and Ansel set off on their climb, accompanied by the unwilling Flegel, the mountain and the quest reveal their treacherous nature – and of course there is a dragon.

The story is told in smooth, secure prose that supports the young reader even as it offers plenty of excitement, danger and a magnificently described trek across icy summits.

But what makes Reeve’s book so very satisfying to read – and why I am recommending it - is the way that at almost every point of the plot, he turns the traditional moments of quest and heroism kindly but wittily from dull expectation to sharp comment on the diffrence between dream and reality.

“Here Lies Arthur,” was Reeve’s novel for young adults about heroism but “There’s No Such Thing as Dragons” examines the same matter delightfully for the 9-12 year old child. It’s a tale that’s well worth reading and would be good for reading aloud. The illustrations are by the author too.

I read this novel without the slightest sense of disappointment and am very, very glad of that. Hope you enjoy it too!

 

Penny Dolan

www.pennydolan.com

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