Lud-in-the-Mist

Hope Mirrlees
Gollancz

Lud-in-the-Mist - a prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything 'other', preferring to believe only in what is known, what is solid.
Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past; a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he realises that something is changing in Lud - and something must be done.

I first read Lud-in -the-Mist about a decade ago having finally tracked down a copy after years of searching.  I'd first heard of it many years ago via Neil Gaiman but in those pre-internet days had started to think of it is an author's fiction; a dream book from Morpheus' library or a grand deception to send wannabe bibliophiles into a frenzy of futile furtling. And then I found one newly reprinted as part of the Gollancz Ultimate Fantasies sequence alongside more well known fantasy stallwarts suich as Conan, Elric and Lyonesse.

My first read all those years ago revealed to me that it was an intriguing but achingly slow read that I soon began to think of as Lud-in-the-Mud.  Truthfully though it just wasn't the right book for me at the time. I'm very much a whim reader and I follow my moods when choosing a book to read which often leads to me getting stuck in particular genres for a while. At that time I was reading lots of neo-noir, southern gothic and beat literature by folks like Charles Willeford, Barry Gifford, Harry Crews and Richard Brautigan so a delicate and very English fantasy about faeries written in 1926 proved a tad slow.

A decade on and whilst all those authors mentioned - particularly Brautigan - still have a place on my shelves my whims have since led me down the paths that spurred me to start the Wyrd Britain blog and so it was time for another visit

Lud-in-the-Mist, the principal town of the state of Dorimare, is a merchant town situated at the confluence of the rivers Dapple and Dawl and it is the former of these that lies at the heart of Lud's problems as it rises in the land of Faerie far to the west and it brings the madness of the fruits of that land.

The story sends the mayor of Lud on a journey across Dorimare and beyond in his search for answers to the misfortunes that have beset him and along the way, as is to be expected, he learns new truths and new values.

The book is a gentle read that finds it's conflict in the contrasts of the stolid and unimaginative middle class of the town and the wild, carefree, lawlessness of the faeries with Mirrlees laying her sympathies right in the middle and so the story becomes one of finding a way of life that embraces both law and anarchy, industry and art. 

And one of my first impressions was right, the book is slow but that's definitely to its advantage.  It's a gentle river along which one can float whilst sampling it's bounty of fairy fruit.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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Mythago Wood

Robert Holdstock
Gollancz

Deep within the wildwood lies a place of myth and mystery, from which few return, and none remain unchanged.
Ryhope Wood may look like a three-mile-square fenced-in wood in rural Herefordshire on the outside, but inside, it is a primeval, intricate labyrinth of trees, impossibly huge, unforgettable... and stronger than time itself.
Stephen Huxley has already lost his father to the mysteries of Ryhope Wood. On his return from the Second World War, he finds his brother, Christian, is also in thrall to the mysterious wood, wherein lies a realm where mythic archetypes grow flesh and blood, where love and beauty haunt your dreams, and in promises of freedom lies the sanctuary of insanity.

A little while back I had a real hankering for something featuring trees; something where a wood was central to the story.  Not just as a location but as a character, a defining point within the story.  I bought a couple of things I saw around - 'The Vorrh' and 'Wychwood' - but neither delivered the fix I wanted but as luck would have it a 'What are you reading?' post on the Wyrd Britain Facebook page brought this one to my attention and I'm so glad it did.

The wood of the title is Ryhope Wood in Herefordshire a tiny woodland that you could walk around in a couple of hours but which could take you a more than a lifetime to walk through - a TARDIS wood if you will.

The wood is one of the last remaining pieces of the ancient woodland that once covered the country - it is the very heart and soul of Britain - and in it can be found all the myths and legends of the land in the form of 'Mythagos', defined by Holdstock as "myth imago, the image of the idealized form of a myth creature".  Myths and legends created from and filtered through the minds of those intruding upon its confines; if, for instance, the defining consensus of Robin Hood is as the tights wearing, acrobatic, chivalrous righter of wrongs then that's the 'mythago' that will be presented but as the consensus shifts to perceiving him as a sadistic, arrogant woodland terrorist then...

The novel tells of Stephen Huxley's reluctant return to his family home following his experiences fighting in Europe during WWII.  The home where his recently deceased father had based his obsessive research on Ryhope Wood and where Stephen's brother Christian seems to be following in his footsteps.  Once there, as Christian disappears into the depths of the wood, Stephen begins his own journey.

At it's heart the book is a rumination on the centrality of legend, of myth and of story in the British identity.  The Wood encapsulates the entirety of the British mythic identity and feeds it back to the observer.  The stories and their characters have a strength to them that enables them to both adapt and endure as can be seen through the actions of such mythagos as 'Guiwenneth' and 'Sorthalan' and in the way Stephen's own journey through the Wood, his quest for love and for revenge, acquires an increasing mythic resonance.

I also wonder if Holdstock was maybe making a more subtle point, an accusation of blame perhaps, as to the loss or lessening of the relevance of myths within British culture as it transpires that it's the arrival and actions of the 'outsider', (the) Christian, that's damaging the Wood and all it holds.

Mythago Wood proved to be that most rare of beasts a truly transformative novel.  One that took hold of me from the off and twisted and writhed and caressed and gnawed and stared and whispered and grinned and punched at me for the entire time I was reading and is still running riot around the back of my head several weeks later.

I adored this book,  unequivocally adored it.

Buy It Here

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The Furthest Station

Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz

There have been ghosts on the London Underground, sad, harmless spectres whose presence does little more than give a frisson to travelling and boost tourism. But now there's a rash of sightings on the Metropolitan Line and these ghosts are frightening, aggressive and seem to be looking for something.
Enter PC Peter Grant junior member of the Metropolitan Police's Special Assessment unit a.k.a. The Folly a.k.a. the only police officers whose official duties include ghost hunting. Together with Jaget Kumar, his counterpart at the British Transport Police, he must brave the terrifying the crush of London's rush hour to find the source of the ghosts.

I do like it when a new Peter Grant book turns up which they do fairly often and now adding to a workload that already includes a comic book series the good Mr. Aaronovitch has commenced a series of Rivers of London novellas.

Peter is called in by his transport police friend Jaget to investigate reports of various people getting harassed on the trains by what appear to be ghosts.  With help from his niece Abigail, his ghost hunting terrier Toby and, of course, Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale they are soon on the trail of a time sensitive case.

It's every bit as fun as this series usually is.  Aaronovitch is a hugely personable writer and how could you go wrong with a book that contains lines like, "Don't get me wrong, I like the countryside.  In fact some of my best friends are geological features.'

With each and every book I become increasingly enamoured of this series and I've just discovered much to my bank accounts dismay that since I last looked not 1, not even 2 but 3 graphic novel collections have emerged.

Buy it here -  The Furthest Station: A PC Grant Novella (PC Peter Grant)

Click the label below to read the Wyrd Britain write ups of the previous entries in this series.

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

The Hanging Tree

Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz

The Hanging Tree was the Tyburn gallows which stood where Marble Arch stands today. Oxford Street was the last trip of the condemned. Some things don't change. The place has a bloody and haunted legacy and now blood has returned to the empty Mayfair mansions of the world's super-rich. And blood mixed with magic is a job for Peter Grant.
Peter Grant is back as are Nightingale et al. at the Folly and the various river gods, ghosts and spirits who attach themselves to England's last wizard and the Met's reluctant investigator of all things supernatural.

We are well into the story of Peter Grant, magic copper, and his various colleagues, both mundane and magical, and his friends and family, both ditto and ditto, and I find myself enjoying them more and more with each book.

After the previous book's sojourn into the countryside - and other place - we're back in London and hot on the trail of Lesley and the Faceless Man as Peter is called in by Beverley's elder sister, Tyburn, to get her daughter out of a pickle following a death at a party.  Investigations soon expose another aspect of the magical world and lead Peter and Nightingale in a most interesting direction.

As is ever the case with these 'Rivers of London' books Aaronovitch ladles the police procedures on - just cause Peter can conjure a water balloon doesn't excuse him from report writing and the chain of command or Latin homework for that matter.

Within all this the story is tight and fluid.  There is little time for the chilling out at the Folly we often see which is a shame as I really like those bits.  What takes their place though is a fast, fun and often funny read that had me firmly in it's grasp from the get go and long may this series continue.

Buy it here - The Hanging Tree: The Sixth PC Grant Mystery

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Foxglove Summer (Rivers of London 5)

Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz

In the fifth of his bestselling series Ben Aaronovitch takes Peter Grant out of whatever comfort zone he might have found and takes him out of London - to a small village in Herefordshire where the local police are reluctant to admit that there might be a supernatural element to the disappearance of some local children. But while you can take the London copper out of London you can't take the London out of the copper.
Travelling west with Beverley Brook, Peter soon finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and local gods. And what's more all the shops are closed by 4pm.


I really like this 'Rivers of London' series so it's a very good day when a new one comes into my possession.  This one is the fifth in the series and, quite literally, opens up a whole new world for police officer and apprentice wizard Peter Grant.

In this one Peter is taken far outside his London comfort zone as he's packed off to rural Herefordshire to check if there's any magical element to the disappearance of two young girls.  There is, of course, and the book details Peter's efforts to work out what the hell it is alongside his new country copper mate Dominic and his very good friend Beverley.

Along the way we get to meet one of Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale's old colleagues, Hugh Oswald and his intriguing bee obsessed grand-daughter and a whole new element of the magical world that Peter has got himself in the middle of.  There are occasional glimpses of the wider story with cryptic texts from the estranged Lesley but this one is very much a stand alone story and perhaps all the better for it.

I really like Nightingale and the whole Folly set-up and I would genuinely love Aaronovitch to explore the history of it in more detail somewhere but equally it's nice to see Peter off the leash and running on his own instincts and, for the most part, getting it spot on.

The story is loose limbed and lively so it doesn't ever feel like we're moving from plot point A to plot point B to C etc and the supporting cast, Beverley in particular, are engaging and interesting in their own right.

The book, because it's a Waterstones edition ends with a little short about a magical granny which is fun and the book closes with an ominous warning and a palpable desire for the next in the series to turn up soon.

Buy it here - Foxglove Summer: The Fifth PC Grant Mystery ...................................................................
NB - you can read our write-ups of the first 3 books in the 'Rivers of London' series here and the 4th here.

The Somnambulist

Jonathan Barnes
(Gollancz)

Project yourself back to Victorian London, with its teeming thoroughfares and dark alleys. Into that evocative scene now place Edward Moon, a deft stage magician and detective, and his silent associate, the Somnambulist. It would appear that the stage has been set for a criminal probes worthy of Holmes himself, but actually The Somnambulist unfolds something just as ambitious, yet far weirder. Moon discovers that giant rats are not the only things rustling through the city's gaslit streets; fiendish plotters, including the walking dead, have descended upon the great metropolis, bringing with them shades of Doctor Caligari and Edward Gorey.

This startling little novel of magical-realist Victoriana about the exploits of a fading magician / detective and his gigantic, mute, milk drinking associate as he investigates a series of unlikely deaths is maybe not an absolute joy but is certainly an intriguing one.

Whilst occasionally straying into the psychogeographical realms of Iain Sinclair, Barnes' tale is a stirring tale of deduction and destruction. Holmes is the obvious reference point here but is only that as Moon has a fully developed quirky personality of his own that needs no counterpart. The Somnambulist himself (the above mentioned milk drinker) is very much a peripheral character with minimal effect on the proceedings which makes his role as the title character a little confusing but then again he does have a cool name so why not. The setting, London, is treated as as much of a character as the flesh and blood (or whatever it is The Somnambulist is made from) ones and there are a number of odd and unusual characters revolving around the core that it makes for interesting reading.

The Somnambulist (the book not the character) is an entertaining enough read. Steampunk purists should probably stay away but personally I enjoyed it. As a novel it was always reaching, it didn't quite make it to where it was going but it never stopped trying and that was good to see especially in a debut novel.