Goodreads | Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo #1)

Elizabeth rated it:

04/15/08

Read in December, 2007

By this point I think the nation's readers of children's fantasy novels have hit a kind of boredom plateau. You get a new fantasy on your desk and you have to tick off the requirements. Alternate world? Orphaned hero or heroine? School for the extraordinary? To a certain extent, a lot of these tried and true stand-bys are essential to a good book. There's a reason they exist, after all. But after reading a bunch of them, reviewers like myself get a little jaded. Kids think everything's new, so t...more By this point I think the nation's readers of children's fantasy novels have hit a kind of boredom plateau. You get a new fantasy on your desk and you have to tick off the requirements. Alternate world? Orphaned hero or heroine? School for the extraordinary? To a certain extent, a lot of these tried and true stand-bys are essential to a good book. There's a reason they exist, after all. But after reading a bunch of them, reviewers like myself get a little jaded. Kids think everything's new, so they're more inclined to love the newest sparkly cover that comes down the pike. For us, finding something that is truly original and truly unique is almost impossible. I mean, it's not as if Harry Potter was the first boy to go to wizarding school even. So imagine my surprise when I encountered a truly rare and amazing fantasy world. A place so thoroughly thought out, planned, meticulously recorded, and imagined that it feels less like a fantasy novel and more like the factual memoirs of an alternate world. I'm not exaggerating here. Aussie D.M. Cornish has spent (according to his bookflap) "the last thirteen years bringing the Half-Continent to life." The result is a book that feels like the first true successor to Tolkien I've ever found.

His name is Rossamund Bookchild. Bookchild because he is an orphan raised by a Marine Society and given the same last name of all the children there. Rossamund, normally a girl's name, because that was the name pinned to him when he was left on the steps as a babe. Growing up reading exciting pamphlets recounting daring deeds, Rossamund has a dream of someday becoming a sailor (or vinegaroon) on the vinegar seas where high adventure awaits. He dreams of someday seeing the vicious monsters that constantly do battle with man around the country and must always be kept at bay. Yet instead of a glorious life on the seas, Rossamund is told that he is to be apprenticed as a lamplighter, lighting the roads of the Half-Continent. It's a disappointing blow, but on the way to his new job Rossamund hops the wrong boat and finds himself facing monsters, rever-men, teratologists, bogles, leers, wits, and a host of other characters and dangers. Moreover, has Rossamund always been told the truth about the monsters people fight, or is there more to some bogles than meets the eye?

Normally when an author wants to introduce you to a new fantasy world, the hero is a kid from our mundane universe who is pushed through extraordinary circumstances into a peculiar realm. Rossamund, however, inclines far more closely to the Bilbo Baggins mode of adventuring. He has led a nice sequestered life in Madame Opera's Estimable Marine Society and his journey turns out to be very much a series of adventures, both good an ill, that are new to him simply because he has only read about the wider world and has not yet lived in it. Yes. Fine. Our hero is an orphan as per a million fantasy novels before. But never have I had such a clear sense that a character's parentage is not the point of the series. Phew!

Really, Rossamund is a great hero. Like Taran in Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron series he yearns for adventure. But unlike Taran he's not a brash young man with a braggart's tongue and a desire to enter battle. Rossamund seems to want adventure without wanting to ever hold a weapon in his hands. He's a rather gentle kid. He'd sooner say nothing than say the wrong thing, a tendency that causes the people around him to open up unexpectedly. Which, from a narrative perspective, is keen. Rossamund's growth in this book is not complete, a fact noticed by the sweet bogle that considers telling him the secret of his name. Still, you have confidence in this hero. He is kind and good and that goes a long way when you have to spend a whole book with him.

Another difference from your normal run-of-the-mill fantasy is Cornish's use of female characters. Strong female characters, that is. At first I figured that this would be yet another boy-boy-boy book. But then you meet the character of Europe and it's all up in the air. Europe is the fighting fulgar that meets Rossamund early in his travels and inspires both his respect and his disgust. She kills monsters for a living, which wouldn't be so bad if the first one Rossamund encounters with her weren't such a sweet but stupid fellow. Her moral complexity mixes with a personality that has enough pep and zazz to keep you guessing about her intentions for most of the book. Fighting women in fantasy novels tend to have no sense of humor, but Europe is quite the wit (inside joke) when her innards aren't trying to reject her new organs.

Maybe it's Cornish's Aussie roots, but he has a knack for language that exceeds the norm. His descriptions are nice and no question, but dialogue seems to be his bread and butter. "Don't give me a reason to remember yer name any further, me darlin' chiffer-chaffer." Or calling someone a "prattling hackmillion". That kind of thing. His easy-going language will strike you as almost cockney at first, but closer inspection of the words and phrases used put a very particular spin on the entire affair. His talent for names is nothing to scoff at either. You'll read titles like Sloughscab, Poundinch, Europe, and Licurius, which pour out of the author like mad wild things.

Regarding the sheer complexity of this world, here is my thinking: Cornish is so invested in this Half-Continent he has created, and so clear on every minute and tiny detail involved that you can't help but be swept up in the logic of it all. Even more amazing though is that Cornish describes everyday realities of the realm without making them sound anything but simultaneously routine AND amazing. Everything we learn about Rossamund's world is extraordinary, but Cornish has it so well-planned that it almost feels routine and logical. Not in the boring sense, of course.

Standing at a handsome 434 pages, this book may appear a bit daunting to your average reader. So you can well imagine my amazement when I hit page 312 and found the story to be over. Finito, as it were. The next 122 pages consisted of an elaborate and enticing Explicarium "Being a glossary of terms and explanations including Appendices". Sounds simple, right? Well, it begins with a explanation of pronunciations for certain terms in this book. Then an explanation of italics. And then a list of faux sources used to research this book (which is always fun). The glossary is extensive and you can basically learn quite a lot about the Haacobin Empire in which Rossamund lives, including history, characters, and different kinds of boats if you've an inclination to do so. Of course, at the same time you'll run across definitions like "muck hill: pile of poo", so make no assumptions. The glossary is followed by a guide to the 16-month calendar of the half-continent, detailed drawings of different occupations and what they wear, every boat from a gun-drudge to a main-sovereign, and enlargements of the Half-Continent terrain that is the most frightening and magnificent map I've ever seen in a work of fiction. Stranger still, all the pictures in this book (and there are many) were drawn by the author himself. Aye, me.

The age level is an interesting question here. Our hero is about fourteen, which puts this book squarely in the middle grade/YA realm. There is some violence (one nasty fellow meets his end by getting eaten alive) but it tends to go quickly. For the most part, I'd say that any kid who could handle the Harry Potter books, the The Amulet of Samarkand series, or any of the The Lord of the Rings would definitely enjoy this series and get into it.

But who thinks of these things? Who imagines a world where people bathe their eyes in chemicals to gain unnatural powers? Or who undergo dangerous surgeries to get superhuman abilities? Who imagines something as tiny and delicate as a spoor, a small shape that is blue or white and burned into the skin to denote a person's occupation? D.M. Cornish, obviously. Basically I just recommend this to anyone who wants something wholly new and never seen before. Cornish's imagination will fuel fans for decades to come, should they find this book. Consider it a little-known gem that you'll end up sucked into. Amazing stuff.

Ages 11 and up....less

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Jennifer rated it:

05/06/08

bookshelves: trt-reviews

Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO is an unusual book. Even before I delved into it, I was struck by some of the ways that it's different from other young adult fantasy novels. For one thing, more than a quarter of the book is taken up with an extensive glossary and other appendices. It is also sprinkled with art - typically sketches of characters in the novel. So even before reading a word of the story, I was curious. Surely such an unusual book would be...more Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO is an unusual book. Even before I delved into it, I was struck by some of the ways that it's different from other young adult fantasy novels. For one thing, more than a quarter of the book is taken up with an extensive glossary and other appendices. It is also sprinkled with art - typically sketches of characters in the novel. So even before reading a word of the story, I was curious. Surely such an unusual book would be either a magnificent, ground-breaking achievement or a disappointing, confusing disaster, right? Turns out that neither of those lofty expectations panned out. Nonetheless, this is a good, entertaining novel with some interesting characters and a unique approach to the human/monster relationship.

The hero of MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO is an orphan, or in the language of the book, a foundling, named Rossamund Bookchild. He was raised at an orphanage, or rather, a foundlingery, called Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls. The only clue the boy has about his parents is that someone had pinned a girl's name, Rossamund, to his blankets before abandoning him years earlier. No doubt that is a story in itself, but it will have to wait for future books.

When Rossamund is old enough, he is selected for a career and sent off to begin life away from Madam Opera's Marine Society. While he is pleased to have been chosen for a job and eager to see the world outside the foundlingery's doors, Rossamund also worries that his career as a lamplighter might not be exciting enough for him. But the boy is dutiful, so he gathers his meager belongings and sets off. Rossamund's journey to lamplighter headquarters should be straightforward enough, but he accidentally ends up aboard the wrong ship and things go downhill from there.

The real adventure in MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO is the dangerous path Rossamund follows in an attempt to find his new employer. Along the way, he meets both humans and monsters, but it is often hard to tell one from the other. More than once he is forced to wonder whom he can trust. Just because an individual is human, does that mean he can be trusted, while all monsters can't be? And how should Rossamund think about a beautiful woman who can make lightening with her body and kills for a living?

I liked how this book has few simple answers. Rossamund goes into the world expecting all adults to be as helpful and kind as those who cared for him at the foundlingery. At the same time, he expects all monsters to be evil, bloodthirsty beasts deserving of nothing better than a violent death. He soon learns otherwise, on both counts.

My only real complaints with MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO were minor. First, I occasionally wanted to scream at Rossamund for being a naive fool. Growing up in a sheltered environment is one thing, but blind stupidity is something else entirely. Like when Rossamund got on the wrong boat. I almost put the book down right then and there, figuring that he was about to get what he deserved. But I muddled through and am glad I did.

My other problem in the book was with names. They are often long, complicated, odd, and hard to pronounce. I hate it when fantasy or science fiction authors do that. It's like they're trying to create a sense of other-worldliness by making up words and creating unusual names. In reality, it just makes things hard on readers and discourages parents or children from reading aloud. I mean, a name like Doctor Verhooverhoven? Is this necessary? If the author has done his job, his descriptions have already created a fantasy world in the reader's mind and he need not resort to ploys like impossibly goofy names.

But, those complaints aside, this was a fun novel. It is an interesting story told from an unusual perspective that kept me entertained. Lovers of the young adult fantasy genre should pick up a copy. Since this is "Book One," our young hero has just begun his string of literary adventures. I will be following his journey with interest. ...less

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