Shadowmancer, GP Taylor
I really wanted to like this book. It sounded good, had good reviews, and indeed started off promisingly enough, as a tale of smugglers and black magic, children pitted against an evil vicar, and a mysterious object of power from Africa. However, about half way throuhg it goes all Old Testament on your ass. All types of magic, witches, tarot cards and so on are pronounced to be irredeemably evil, the devil (who turns up towads the end) claims he uses the name of earth mother to trap the unwary, and the only chance of salvation anyone has is through their acceptance of the "one true god".
The characters never become especially three dimensional: Raphah (which I never could decide how to pronounce, so that annoyed me all the way through), hot on the trail of a missing religious object from Africa spends most of his time being offended at how eighteenth century villagers react to an irritatingly sanctimonious black guy appearing in their midst. The evil vicar never seems to be consistent in his character and when dealing with the sumggler Jacon Crane there seem to be huge leaps between his intent in different scenes, without it being clear whether he's being treacherous or just confused.
The end comes suddenly, to the extent that as the number of pages left dwindled I was wondering if it would actually be left on a cliffhanger and I'd have to struggle through another book. However, no, it all ends in a rather rushed scene in Whitby, but leaving lots of things unresolved (such as the fate of the Azimuth, who Crane had sworn to help, Thomas' mother, Kate's father, or the people of Baytown whose houses have just fallen into the sea).
While he does work in some nice elements of mythology, both local Yorkshire and Eastern Christian, all it really suceeds in delivering is a plot full of holes and characters that never become more than symbols for religious allegory that's rammed home with the subtlety of a poker. I won't be bothering with any others by him.
The River of Adventure, Enid Blyton
The Adventure series was always my favourite Enid Blyton set, and I've just got hold of a 1956 hardback copy of this one with the original Stuart Tresillian line drawings, which are lovely and bring back a lot of childhood memories. People say that Blyton books are too dated or racist or sexist for a 'modern' audience, and cherry-pick quotes as appropriate, but personally I feel that's a load of rubbish if you actually read them through. Ok, so a few bits date them, such as "the air hostess brought them a tray full of most delicious food. 'Why is the food always so super on a plane'..." - and very possibly: "Philip was giving his snake an airing". Ok, so in the 1950's people's minds probably weren't as filthy as they are now (well, mine, anyway)...
The River of Adventure sees the four children (Phillip, Jack, Dinah and Lucy-Ann) and Kiki the parrot off to foreign parts and warmer climes as they convalesce from the flu - additionally acting as a smokescreen for Bill, who's keeping an eye on shady character Raya Uma for the British government. Needless to say, the baddies intervene, the children get separated from the grown-ups and fall headlong into adventure, including snakes, waterfalls, underground tunnels and hidden treasure...
Enid Blyton books give good treasure, always of suitably spectacular proportions, and can also be counted on for plucky children and a variety of exciting scrapes and well described locations. Recommended for readers of any age that want a couple of hours' escapism.
