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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
This book was something of a slow start for me, but moved quickly after the main character was abducted by pirates. The characters are fabulous and very Dickensian. None of this will interest my ordinary middle school readers, but I think it will be a hit with those who enjoy Westerfield, Reeve, Slade and other steampunk authors.
Pretty good, although the fact that a HUGE chunk of it is notes is pretty intimidating, and also annoying, because I didn't know there was a dictionary/encyclopedia of Half-Continent words in the back, so a)I thought the book was going to be a whole lot longer than it was and b)I really could have used that dictionary that I didn't know about, because trying to keep all the invented words straight is really tough, and who wants to spend endless time flipping back through a book to find the relevant footnote?
dark
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I just finished re-reading (or re-listening in my case) because I realized I never finished the series. It’s been years since I last read Foundling but I remembered that the book was fantastic and my memory did not disappoint. It’s about a young orphan boy who sets off on a journey full of twists and turns to become a lamplighter for the empire. The lamplighter life isn’t what he wants but without any other prospects that’s the life that is chosen for him. He encounters many dangerous people and monsters on his journey to get to the lamplighter HQ and that’s the fun of the book. If you can get a copy of this book with the illustrations I would recommend it because even years later I still remember how cool the illustrations where.
Cornish, who drew the wonderfully detailed and evocative sketches that illustrate the text, proves himself a world-builder of the first order, one with the writing chops to keep up with and artfully present the place he's so richly created, including maps and an astonishing explicarium. In fact, his one weak spot is that he's overly fond of dialect spelling, but even this cannot distract from his remarkable cast of characters, foremost among them the protagonist of this bildungsroman, the foundling of this first volume, Rossamund Bookchild. I can't overstate how quickly he makes the reader feel the grittiness and danger of this place, the Half-Continent; it simply has to be experienced first-hand.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this series and it's beyond me why MR. Cornish hasn't written more. His writing style is unique and unlike any other author I have had the pleasure of reading.
awesome, dickens orphan meets harry potter fantasy gibberish. swell.
This book stays on my shelf as a reminder of the intense world of fantasy I created after reading this as a 11 or 12 year old. I copied the drawings often, loved the maps, appendices etc. This series was a great introduction into fantasy as more than just a book- a whole imagined world.
I can't help feeling as if Cornish spent all his time meticulously planning out his world and giving things odd names while entirely neglecting the primary character. For most of the book I wanted to kick Rossamund because he is so infuriatingly passive and naive. In the last ten pages of the book he gets up his courage to resist what is happening to him (it is worth mentioning that he sits and cries for about an hour about how unfair it all is shortly before this) and rebels by sitting down in the middle of a street to prevent being dragged away to an undesired destination.
Aside from the lack of an interesting main character, about a quarter of the book's pages are dedicated to an exhaustive appendix of terms and diagrams of costumes and such at the end. Some people may enjoy detailed world building but I draw the line when every other word is unfamiliar because it simply blocked my enjoyment of the story.
Odd enough, I found the secondary character of Europe more interesting than Rossamund himself. In fact, it feels as if just about any character in the book would have a more interesting story to tell than Rossamund's passive participation in Things That Happen To Him.
tl;dr: too many new words for me to parse often prevented me becoming sufficiently immersed in the story. Rossamund is annoying and far too naive to be alive at the end of the book. Additionally, if a quarter of the page count for your book is an appendix of terms and drawings, your story may need some work.
Aside from the lack of an interesting main character, about a quarter of the book's pages are dedicated to an exhaustive appendix of terms and diagrams of costumes and such at the end. Some people may enjoy detailed world building but I draw the line when every other word is unfamiliar because it simply blocked my enjoyment of the story.
Odd enough, I found the secondary character of Europe more interesting than Rossamund himself. In fact, it feels as if just about any character in the book would have a more interesting story to tell than Rossamund's passive participation in Things That Happen To Him.
tl;dr: too many new words for me to parse often prevented me becoming sufficiently immersed in the story. Rossamund is annoying and far too naive to be alive at the end of the book. Additionally, if a quarter of the page count for your book is an appendix of terms and drawings, your story may need some work.