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PROSPERO'S CHILDREN In the grand tradition of children's fantasy novels two children and their father inherit a spooky old house on the Yorkshire Moors and proceed to find that they have bitten off more than they can chew. Only this isn't a children's novel. It is the 1980s with all that implies and Fern is sixteen-going-on-thirty something, world weary and wise to the arty London sphere her father moves in. She is determined to scare off all prospective stepmothers and the latest pretender to the title, Alison is worse than most. As she discovers more and more about the mysterious house during the summer holidays she also finds her adult veneer being stripped away and discovering plenty about herself and the fact that "there is more in heaven and earth." A witch, talking statues, a magic television set, a man who becomes a stone and a friendly werewolf, sinister art dealers, doorways to Atlantic, unicorns and mermaids all feature in this novel. It is very much two books in one as in the first part we are firmly in 1980s Yorkshire and in the second we have moved back into the distant past and watch the fall of Atlantis. The first part was way too wordy and took a long time to get to the meat of the story whereas I could have lingered longer in the well-realized world of Atlantis, a magical place that owed something to Rider Haggard. At the end of the tale I felt that something special had been missing - Fern never becomes likeable or knowable enough to be a good protagonist and all sorts of tantalizing characters and plot possibilities are snatched away before we can really get a grip on them. There is good stuff in here - good but not great. I think my favorite things were the descriptions of Atlantis and the beautiful dustcover. |