IMAGINATION CAN BE A
DANGEROUS THING
The first Hollow Earth story began in earnest
with Brother Renard, a tired old monk who lived in the monastery on Era Mina,
who after concentrating on a griffin he’d painted onto parchment, let his quill
fall from his hands as he fell asleep.
Using this opportune moment, the griffin made a bolt for freedom but as
his wing caught the monk’s finger, the old monk awoke and slammed his fist onto
the tail of the mythical creature he had conjured up, preventing it from
leaving the paper. Retrieving his quill he
forced the griffin to hold the letter G and remain on the page. This was our first insight into ‘The Book of
Beasts’. It was also our first insight
into the young apprentice monk Solon, who would be our guide in the Middle
Ages.
In present day we are
introduced to the main characters of the story, Matt and Emily Calder (Em for
short) who are 12 year old twins with one thing in common, well two. One,
they’re twins, with the ability to communicate through telepathy when they
don’t wish others to hear them, and secondly, they’re Animares with the ability
of entering any painting by conjuring up an image on any surface and using it
to their advantage. Pretty much in the
way every child wishes they could do to get themselves out of trouble!!!
Matt is six minutes
older than his sister Emily, and regularly reminds her of that. He’s an impatient young man and doesn’t like
to be ‘kept in the dark’ and he gets bored very quickly. Emily is quieter than her brother; she
communicates easier through telepathy, and is emotionally weaker at the start. She’s bothered by night terrors and one in
particular has her scared out of her wits.
Something is following her and has been since London.
They live with their Mum
Sandie, a young 30 something, single parent, who is an artist but also works as
an artist restorer for national and international galleries all over the world.
Sandie was born and bred in Scotland and typical of her Celtic heritage has thick
curly fair hair and is incredibly freckly.
Despite this description of her character I could only see Joely
Richardson in my head.
Sandie had been married to
Malcolm Calder, and had bore him two children which didn’t go down too well
with the Council of Guardians, who knew that children born from an Animare and
a Guardian were Hybrids and extremely dangerous. Although some believed with careful nurturing
they could be controlled, others believed that binding was the only
option. However, it was against the
rules to bind children.
During a ten minute
break at the National Gallery while their Mum Sandie was busy with ‘work’, Matt
and Em began to draw themselves into the painting of the Bathers of Asnières,
until glancing up at the sky that didn’t exist, Em and Matt found themselves
sopping wet on the floor of the Gallery.
It was to be the start of an adventure that would see the children and
their Mum fleeing London to the safe haven of the Scottish Isle of
Auchinmurn. The Abbey that had begun its
life as a fortress before becoming home for a community of monks in the early
Middle Ages and a modern place of learning in the 21st century that was
also home for the Calder family.
Sandie is reunited with
her father in law Mason Renard Calder and the friends she has known since
university Simon Butler and Mara Lin.
Simon Butler is a 30 something ex footballer with a dodgy knee; he has a
deaf son called Zach who has lived at the Abbey since he was a mere toddler.
Simon lives and works at the Abbey, is extremely good with computers and in my
head, the only person I saw wearing shorts in this role was John Barrowman.
Mason Renard Calder the
twin’s grandfather is an old but powerful man, who has links with the island
and the monastery of Era Mina. He seems
practically untouchable by the Council and he is fiercely protective of his
family and of the island. So much so
that with help from his daughter in law, he bound his only son Malcolm into a
painting and stored it in the vaults at the Abbey for safe keeping. The only person I pictured in this role was
Billy Connolly and this image lasted throughout the entire trilogy.
Mara Lin reminded Em
Calder of a Native American princess with her dark black hair and her wide
hazel eyes. An artist in residence at
the Abbey, Mara was a very mysterious young woman who once loved Malcolm Calder,
she was extremely jealous of Sandie Calder and it was difficult at times to
gauge her allegiance. I could see a
mixture of Thandie Newton and Tuppence Middleton for this character image.
Although Malcolm Calder
only appears in memories and flashbacks, in this novel, the only person I could
see as this character in my head was Sean Harris.
Taking care of the Abbey
and the people who lived there is Jeannie the housekeeper. Jeannie has a strong connection with the
Scottish isle of Auchinmurn and indeed the Isle of Era Mina. In my mind I pictured her as a cross between
a slim Peggy Mount and Pat Coombs in nature and temperament, clad in the garb
of the 1950’s housekeeper. I couldn’t
help but love Jeannie and I feel I’ve always known her, right through my own
childhood.
I couldn’t picture
characters for the children or for Zach but I could imagine their emotions
quite easily.
There was intrigue and
danger afoot in the first novel. Members
of the reformed Hollow Earth Society who wanted to ‘retrieve the monsters, control them and unleash them on the world’,
were planning on using the twins to free Malcolm Calder from the painting where
he was bound and locate the entrance to Hollow Earth. Thankfully their plans were thwarted due to
the appearance of the white peryton, conjured by an old monk from the Middle
Ages, but at what cost to the old man’s health, and at what cost to the island
of Era Mina and the world of Animare’s was yet to unfold. And worse still, Sandie Calder was missing...
IMAGINATION HOLDS THE
KEY
The Second Novel: Bone Quill delved deeper into the
Middle Ages than the previous novel and told us a lot more about the 15 year
old apprentice monk, Solon, and his life in the monastery on the Isle of Era
Mina. It also told us more about the
Book of Beasts that the old monk was working upon, his life’s work, and involved
Solon to go on many quests for him and especially for other monks, desperate
for the boy to be away in order for them to locate something precious.
A travel through history
books can seem boring to most, but the author kept the reader steady without
heavily bogging them down with facts and detail of the setting, clothing and
condition of the lands and the dwellings.
In the second novel, the twins were in search of their mum, and the
truth about their Dad. And Matt was
determined to find them both.
It’s difficult not to
give too much away regarding this novel but the upshot of the story is very
much based in the Middle Ages, with the children searching for their Mum, Solon
discovering the twins, a Viking invasion on the Isle of Era Mina, Solon
discovering a fiery young Norse girl, by the name of Carik, a Guardian with the
skill of archery and the good sense to appear dead when being hunted by the bog
monster living in Solon’s cave, and Matt finding the painting holding his Dad
and releasing him, into the Middle Ages in a bid to find his Mum and sister,
unaware that his Dad was exactly where he needed to be.
Unbinding his Dad, Matt
had caused a dangerous rift in time, (where have we heard that before?), and
his Dad is not how he imagined him to be, but given he was bound into a
painting for 10 years, was likely to take its toll, but the man was not
forgiving in his quest for the Bone Quill and the location of the Book of Beasts.
The deeper into the
story we go, the darker the hooded figure becomes, and it’s a race for the
twins and their mother to get back to modern times before the hell hounds track
them down.
It falls to a familiar
house keeper to travel to the Middle Ages and use all of her powers to stop the
secrets of the Isle escaping into the present day world. But can she do it in time to save the family
that she loves?
“BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU
FIGHT THE MONSTERS LEST YOU BECOME ONE.” Friedrich Nietzsche
The third and final
instalment of the Hollow Earth novels ‘The
Book of Beasts’ saw us on the craggy hillside of Era Mina in 1848, and if
you’ve been following the story so far, you’ll know that this is the year that Duncan
Fox founds The Hollow Earth Society.
As with the last two
novels we have an introduction and catch-up of the story so far, which allows
us to go forward without having to pull out the previous book and familiarise
ourselves with the characters.
I have to admit I’d
forgotten about Carik in the Bone Quill due to the extent of the adventure and
so much happening within the pages. In this third instalment
I saw a face for Carik, although the actual face of Solon is based on a monk
from a long ago drama of whose name evades me, but doesn’t look too dissimilar
to a younger version of Pete Postlethwaite. I saw Carik as Persephone
Swales-Dawson.
The Book of Beasts began
at a steady pace and never dipped once, although I admit to a little confusion about
Carik but that was my fault, I’d plum forgotten she existed.
The protection of the
Book of Beasts rests solely upon Solon’s shoulders. Still in the Middle Ages, which I imagined to
be dark and depressing as I never saw daylight as I read it, whereas the
passages involving present day was always bathed in sunlight. Strange.
The battle to protect
the book and the secrets of the Isle involve a lot of people, and most you’ve
already read about in the previous two books, short of a few Avada Kedavra’s
and flashes of wands, and darting about on broomsticks, The Hollow Earth
trilogy is as action packed as the final onslaught at Hogwarts, with everything
happening and mystical beasts, and lots of conjuring.
Yet it was a delightful
journey, delightful and ever so scary in places, and painful to read given the
punishment certain characters were enduring.
It was full of history from the Middle Ages and all the questions you
had in the previous two books will be answered in the final, and I had a lot of
questions!!!
Having watched enough
scary monster films in my time, it wasn’t too difficult to imagine what the dark
figure looked like beneath the hooded cloak.
It wasn’t too difficult either to imagine the creatures it conjured up
stalking across the beach. There were a
lot of other kinds of conjuring that occurred that to tell you would only spoil
it, but if you were ever in trouble and you needed to escape you’d really wish
you had the gift of an Animare to achieve it.
When John and Carole E
Barrowman thought up this story I wonder if they ever imagined how popular the
stories would become and just how many adults would read their books given that
they’re for children!!!
They’ve been a pleasure
to read, and the best thing about these books are that, just like the Famous
Five, and Harry Potter novels, knowing that you’re aware of the ending, you’ll
never grow tired of re-reading them.
Thank you John and
Carole, now please if JK Rowling can write more Harry Potter, I’m sure you can
conjure up another Matt and Em story, involving Jeannie, and The Abbey family! (cue
the all too familiar theme tune and clicks fingers).
5/5
Hollow Earth ISBN
978-1-907151-64-4
Bone Quill ISBN
978-1-78055-031-2
The Book of Beasts ISBN
9781781856352
Available online and in
all good book shops
No comments:
Post a Comment