Max China's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

Atrament Speaks by C. McDonald

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of this book, completing it only recently. I understand it will be released soon, so I thought I'd best review it while it is still fresh in my mind.

Atrament Speaks is set in a sort of parallel world to ours called Noor, the place of perfect light. The story opens with a glimpse of the brilliant colours that abound within it, the author's 'camera' pans over the landscape quickly coming in to focus on Clara Maddingley and Persimmony Clump. In this world, the language spoken is a hybrid eighteenth century style of English, and the people and creatures that populate it are similar to those in our own world. At the beginning, Clara meets Atrament, the last true descendant of The Disobedient Ones, and hears him speak for the first time, and after that she carries his voice with her by means of a device he gifts her, along with something else . . .
For faded, read dead. For haran, read horse . . . all becomes clear with continued reading, and as with the other colloquial peculiarities of the language, takes no time at all to get used to, in fact it adds a certain depth and credibility to the story. After a few pages a kind of fluency takes over, and when it does, this sweeping, epic tale really begins to unfold. It is intricately woven, but the pace is unaffected by the detailing. This work is worthy, in my opinion, of the rating I have given it. I have also read the second part of this trilogy and I believe that if you enjoyed Tolkein, or realistic fantasy in general, then you are in for a treat.




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