Farperoo
(The Dark Inventions, Vol. 1)
by Mark Lamb

I want to plunge right into praises for this book, for several reasons. First, and just to get it out there in public so no one can say I hid the facts from you, I didn’t have to pay for this book. A kind and enthusiastic bookseller sent it to me all the way from the U.K. (Thanks, Nigel!) for me to review. Not to encourage or discourage any authors or publishers who are thinking of making the same offer, I need to add that I only accept such an offer if it sounds like a book that I want to read—and I will be honest about what I think of it!

Second, this “Volume 1” of the "Dark Inventions" is the beginning of a powerful new fantasy for young readers. It has a bit in common with Philip Pullman’s "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and it also reminds me of the "Wolves Chronicles" by Joan Aiken. Set mostly in a ghastly, seaside town in a bizarro-England, for which the weather, crime, industrial pollution, corruption, and unethical journalists make Grimston-on-Sea an amazingly apt name. A weirdly talented girl named Lucy Blake—whose gifts include “inventing” (also known as LYING)—soon comes into focus. Both of her parents disappeared and/or died under mysterious circumstances, and she lives in her ancestral house with a conniving, lampstand-shaped stepmom, a spineless, jingle-writing step-stepdad, and a stepbrother whose name (Tarquin) pretty much tells you everything you need to know about him. She has a friend named Toby Lindstrom, who is pretty ordinary—not particularly brave, not very good at keeping secrets—but solidly loyal. She has another friend named Fenny who vanishes in broad daylight, on a crowded boardwalk, at the beginning of the story. And everyone else, more or less, is her enemy.

That includes some pretty powerful people. By the end of the book, she has made a couple more friends (notably a “private dick” named Bentley Priory), but lots more powerful enemies including the police, the press, a law firm, the staff of a psychiatric hospital, any number of people and things in a world called Farperoo, and last but not least, an eeeevil angel named Raziel. And why shouldn’t Lucy have enemies? She has the power to move between several worlds. She can conjure tons of salted-in-the-shell peanuts out of thin air. She is in possession of a book that existed before the world was created. AND she has the power to alter, create, or destroy reality simply by telling lies...erm, I mean inventions.

So on the “Pro” side of getting this book: it is a daringly imaginative fantasy, full of thrills, chills, and laugh-out-loud humor; it is attractively illustrated by Matthew S. Armstrong; and, judging by the size of this book, plus certain hints that there may eventually be 3 more like it, you could pass a lot of wonderful hours reading this tale. The author has a very individual style and a clever way of paying out information, though at first its “differentness” may be a bit offputting. And there’s no denying that the book is solidly bound.

HOWEVER, I must also mention the “Con” side: the binding again. This book is huge—thick, wide, tall, and heavily bound. I believe it is self-published, which may explain all this. Maybe an advantage of publishing commercially is that you get a lighter stock of paper, less offensive-smelling ink, and an overall product that sits more comfortably in the hand. This book gave me wrist cramps! But I’m not just kvetching about the weight. The page format is like one of those big, dull textbooks you had in high school or college, with really wide paragraphs that cost more effort to read than the narrower format found in most fiction.

My overall verdict is that the book is worth reading even if it is a little hard on the arms and eyes—but I do hope future editions are formatted better. Also, I can’t help noticing (because of my theological training) that the author’s ideas about angels and demons are a little goofy, if not disturbing. But it is also clear that the worlds (even the “real world”) in this story are fictional, fantasy worlds where more than just the spelling of things like “Ingulesh” and “Latinn” is likely to be different from our own. I think you will enjoy visiting this world, and I predict that you will be hopelessly “hooked” by the ending.

Robbie Fischer
USA

Recommended Age: 13+

9/18/05

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