Synopsis:Set in the world of the Half-Continent-a land of tri-corner hats and flintlock pistols-the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy is a world of predatory monsters, chemical potions and surgically altered people. Foundling begins the journey of Rossamund, a boy with a girl's name, who is just about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor. What starts as a simple journey is threatened by encounters with monsters-and people, who may be worse. Learning who to trust and who to fear is neither easy nor without its perils, and Rossamund must choose his path carefully.

Review; Rossamund is a foundling. We meet him first at Madame Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls where he is teased continually about his name. Rossamund reads stories of heroes who defeat vicious and hideous monsters and dreams of joining them in their quest to rid the world of the monsters' presence. Too soon, it is time for Rossamund to leave the society and make his way in the world. He is to become a lamplighter on the fringes of the known world. Rossamund must travel to High Vesting to begin his apprenticeship. However the journey soon takes unexpected turns, he mistakenly meets the villanous Poundinch and barely escapes intact. As his journey progresses the simple world view he started with becomes undermined by events.

Monster Blood Tattoo is the richly imagined first volume of ( yet another!) fantasy trilogy. I found it slow to get going in comparison to others within the genre but soon realised this was because the author was carefully and skillfully drawing the reader into the detailed and original setting and group of characters. The world that is revealed is made strange through intriguing variants on those that we are familiar with. For example, the boats are powered by gastrines which are 'big boxes of wood bound with metal, inside of which are great muscle like organs have been grown about a metalsection of treadle-shaft or shaft section within the box'. ( I know this because the details are explained in an extensive 'explicarium' which takes up almost a third of the book! ) It is this kind of detail that lifts the book way above the standard for the genre, now heavily overpopulated in the wake of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. The writing style, too, is intiguing and enjoyable - almost Victorian in  its cadences. Elements of the plot are familiar to fantasy readers - the journey, which provides the backbone of the action, also represents the main character's emergence into maturity and the destruction of childhood simplicities. The range of characters who accompany Rossamund through his adventures are a mixture of the trustworthy, enigmatic and unmistakably evil.

After it all Rossamund finally arrives at his intended destination ready to start the second volume. I shall be there with him when it is published, ready to join the next journey into the unexplored lands beyond the light of the lamps. Recommended for fantasy fans of all ages but particularly for 11 to 15 year olds.

2006-12-26