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The Indigo King
The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica - Book III

by James A Owen

     

Old friends and caretakers of the Archipelago John and Jack are mystified to read an old parchment containing a note from their friend Hugo.  Surely he has never visited the magical realm detailed in the Geographica?  But soon the three friends have found themselves once more transported to that other place, only instead of the usual unusual, they discover the Winterland.  Here, Mordred has reigned for many hundreds of years and terrible monsters stalk a wasteland.  Here too lives Charles the third caretaker— but no longer the dignified scholar.  Somehow the friends must go back to the beginning via a series of magic lantern slides and discover a way of putting a stop to Mordred’s dastardly doings for ever.

Not your ordinary fantasy then?  For anybody tired of the Tolkeinesque clichés, here is a novel that actually has Tolkein in it (and C S Lewis, and H G Wells) but which takes rather a different path.  Ostensibly aimed at teenagers, this is the sort of novel that is going to be read by just as many adults, talking animals apart.  If you have read the others you will know what to expect, and if you haven’t, this is not the place to start as this is very much a serial rather than a series.  So here is another action-packed sortie into the magical Archipelago, as well as into ancient history and myth, that manages to be more different from the first book than the second was.  Expect a pretty involved and convoluted tale, with lots of rather neat references to the works of the aforementioned authors. In short there is much to admire here, but rather noticeably Mr Owen is one of those authors who lacks a talent for female characters.  In his world, virtually everybody is male and what few women do appear right at the end of the book tend to be stock characters from myths and legends rather than invented by the author.  As much of the story is set in a fantasy land rather than 1930s Oxford or even Ancient Greece, there is surely a chance for a few interesting females?  One for a range of ages, but more for the boys than the girls.

The Book

Simon & Schuster
January 2009
Paperback
1847382675 / 9781847382672
Teenage / Adult Fantasy [1931 / Oxford and Fantastic Location]
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Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Rachel A Hyde
Reviewed 2009
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