In this novella published last year, John C. Wright (an
author I've been aware of but haven't read until now) harkens back to THE LION,
THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, PETER PAN, and all the other books where British
schoolchildren travel to magical lands and have all sorts of exciting
adventures. But Wright approaches that subgenre by asking what happened to
those brave youngsters in all the decades after those adventures, when they
have to return to their mundane lives, as well as how they handle it when their
dangerous past crops up again.
The protagonist, Thomas, is a corporate drone whose memories of that other land and his journey there with three of his friends have receded thirty years into the past. But then Tybalt, the talking cat who accompanied the kids on their adventures, turns up unexpectedly and warns Thomas that a great evil is loose again and threatens to venture from the realm of faerie and wreak havoc in our world. According to Tybalt, it's time to get the old gang together again and stop this from happening.
Well, I'm a sucker for stories where some old geezers band together for one last, great adventure, of course, but Wright doesn't go for the easy way out in his plot. Not all the intrepid adventurers are still alive, and not all of them are still pure of heart, either. Thomas will have his hands full keeping England, and eventually the whole world, from being taken over by the evil Winter King.
ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM is a very well written book mixing fantasy and adventure with a little philosophy, and Wright packs enough plot into it to have kept a lot of writers going for a whole trilogy of fat novels. In fact, there are enough throwaway lines about previous adventures and magical places to fuel a seemingly endless series of doorstop volumes. I really like the fact that Wright blows right on past all that and tells a story that feels like an epic without taking thousands of pages to do so.
Since reading this novella, I've read some of Wright's short stories and enjoyed them as well. I have some of his full-length novels on my shelves and will get to them eventually, I hope. For now, I really enjoyed ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM and think it's well worth reading.
The protagonist, Thomas, is a corporate drone whose memories of that other land and his journey there with three of his friends have receded thirty years into the past. But then Tybalt, the talking cat who accompanied the kids on their adventures, turns up unexpectedly and warns Thomas that a great evil is loose again and threatens to venture from the realm of faerie and wreak havoc in our world. According to Tybalt, it's time to get the old gang together again and stop this from happening.
Well, I'm a sucker for stories where some old geezers band together for one last, great adventure, of course, but Wright doesn't go for the easy way out in his plot. Not all the intrepid adventurers are still alive, and not all of them are still pure of heart, either. Thomas will have his hands full keeping England, and eventually the whole world, from being taken over by the evil Winter King.
ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM is a very well written book mixing fantasy and adventure with a little philosophy, and Wright packs enough plot into it to have kept a lot of writers going for a whole trilogy of fat novels. In fact, there are enough throwaway lines about previous adventures and magical places to fuel a seemingly endless series of doorstop volumes. I really like the fact that Wright blows right on past all that and tells a story that feels like an epic without taking thousands of pages to do so.
Since reading this novella, I've read some of Wright's short stories and enjoyed them as well. I have some of his full-length novels on my shelves and will get to them eventually, I hope. For now, I really enjoyed ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM and think it's well worth reading.
