Last Stand in Lychford

Lychford #5

by Paul Cornell

Celestial beings and human witches clash for the future of the human and fairy worlds in this exciting conclusion to the Witches of Lychford series

There are changes in the air, both in Lychford and in the land of fairy.

The magical protections previously employed by the town are gone, and the forces of darkness are closing in – both figuratively and literally.

Can Autumn and Lizzie save their community, and... well, the world...?

Exploding fairies, the architect of the universe and a celestial bureaucratic blunder make this a satisfying conclusion to the ever-popular Witches of Lychford series.

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Novella, Fiction, Witches, Audiobook, Magic

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 24, 2020

About the author

Paul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.

via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...

Reviews

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this is it!

Judith is gone and Finn ... exploded (at the end of the previous book)! So now Autumn and Lizzy are scrambling to protect the town. Granted, it's a little bit better now that many have been rained on and therefore see some of the magic (making them more likely to listen to their new wise woman).
But then the enemy is coming. Fairies ... or are they? Because the King (Finn's father) is not with them. Instead, something that looks to Lizzy (a Reverend) like an angel. Well, we know of at least one from Christian mythology that might have had wings but wasn't QUITE what Christians had wanted him to be. *snickers*
It's all about herd mentality vs. individualism and self-reliance, being gullible vs being informed and brave, old and new knowledge coming together to form something that hasn't been before.
There is also a message or two from Judith that had me whooping and we finally find out what Cummings was/is.

We learn of other realms, of history (in a way), of treaties and how the borders / walls had been put up for protection. Other than that, it's pretty much a straight forward conflict between the sides (incl. a nice examination of Cummings and his "boss" and how they were doing what they were doing that, of course, has its basis in our political reality) but with relatively little actual fighting (think action movie) and more moves and counter-moves. We can't all be superheroes after all. Though there were a few very satisfying explosions. Muahahahahahaha!

As much as I've mourned Judith, I liked the character progression and Zorya entering the picture, becoming part of the coven. Just like some funny literary references, some of which had me chuckling quite a bit. Moreover, the split-up story paths with Autumn's quest being one, was making this finale even more fast-paced.

Overall, I'm quite happy with this little series. I generally like stories about witches and ones that are a bit different, though not all. I liked that there wasn't any wand-waving or too much spell-casting, that it was more nature stuff and knowledge and being clever. Made for a nice, more realism-based change.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

War.

Well, we all know that big-ass war can come to even the most out-of-the-way small towns, but I'm sure that all these folks didn't count on war with Fae and Angels. I mean, the locals aren't really equipped for this kind of shit. A handful of witches and enthusiastic amateurs kinda makes this a rather over-powered confrontation and a drastic departure from the previous volumes.

But like a lot of wars, it comes on rather quickly and borders WERE a major issue in the earlier ones.

Of course, borders can be consciousness, too, and sideways universes can really give you a bad day.

[K.J. Charles]

I really enjoyed this series about a priest, a New Ager and a hedge witch in a modernish Brexit Britain town on the borders of fairyland. That said, this installment didn't quite land for me. It may be because I'm in a reading slump, but the plot felt a bit...unfocused, maybe, or insufficiently grounded, with an awful lot of things being set up and happening quite quickly so I didn't feel the impact. Lots of great ideas, vivid, and I really enjoy the characters and voice, so don't know, maybe I'm just not a very good reader atm.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastical anti brexit story with a model person of colour earning respect from the predominately white community by going above and beyond. Its told really well and it helps that its noted upon within the story itself.

Also, Emma Newman is a really good audio narrator (and author and person, probably).

[imyril is not really here any more · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the set-up and the sense of threat, I thought the climax with the boss was a bit contrived, but there is - as always - much to love about this final Lychford novella. As with any good teller of fairytales, Cornell understand that beginnings are vital to endings, making all the past novellas relevant in the big showdown over the borders.

Huge themes, much tongue in cheek, a great sacrifice, and at the very end Cornell proves he can still surprise me and make me cry. Because Lizzie. Thank you, sir.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25

i really enjoyed this series, and the taught tension, imaginative world-building, and satisfying character endings of this final instalment brought it to a great conclusion!

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assume uts the last in the series but maybe still some stories to tell. Well paced and quirky addition

[Tori Story · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay I REALLY loved these books but WHYYYYY was Lizzie being canonically queer literally the last two lines of the book??? Really more a 4.5 because of that.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last book in the series, dagnabbit. I love this series. I've been fuzzy on the details for a long time, since I've read these as they come out in annual installments, but everything seems to be wrapped up in a neat little package, after the epic battle against Satan and corporatism, and Faerie is involved, and Autumn meets someone, and Lizzy's salty because everyone keeps apologizing for swearing in front of her, and Finn explodes, and we even get a new character, Zoya, who's already been touched and didn't need to drink of the well but is too churlish to bother with any of this until she has to because she's too busy being an immigrant single mom and can't be bothered with British people faffing about describing magick to her. Must go back eventually and read these all in a row, but until then, this was pleasant and deeply scary because the Evil built a barrier around town and believers remained inside and they were gladly ready to accept the end of the world because a sky ghost was talking to them. Well done, Paul Cornell.

[Colin Forbes · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars - rounded up because feeling generous

Well ... stuff happened, and the story came to an end, but that's about all that I feel I can say about it right now.

I feel like this novella series peaked somewhere about the second book and I've carried on reading mostly out of habit. It took me far too long to get through what is really quite a short read. I just wasn't feeling any impetus for the story, nor any particular connection to the characters - who seemed a pale reflection of the versions we knew from earlier books.

Maybe it was just me. Perhaps I should have put it aside and tried again at another time.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great wrap up to the Lychford series of novellas. A little less violent than some of the earlier books, more focus on the strong female characters and them finally calling bollocks on all the manipulation and other bs. Really enjoyed Autumn’s growth in this book and her time with the fairy king.

Fun series from one of my favorite authors. Smart, funny, weird, scary, and above all, well written.

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final Lychford novella was a fantastic end to the series. Seeing the witches confront the dangers threatening the village was wonderful, and the new characters were a great addition. It still feels a bit bittersweet after what happened in the previous installment, but the resolution here left me grinning.

[Alex Sarll]

Over the course of four books, three mismatched women defended the little Cotswolds town of Lychford from the strange forces on its borders. Now one of the three is dead, and the whole town (or very nearly) knows the supernatural is real. News to which they respond in what would already have been a very believably British fashion, and feels even more so after eight months of pandemic and with Brexit looming: they wish whoever's responsible would sort it out, because after all they do pay their rates, and in the meantime can't they just get on with life?

Another element which has worked out nicely: in the series' first book, Cornell established a villain whose name was D Cummings, and to whom it is entirely in character to give this speech: "Disruption is the most important thing. You take the rules, and you rip them up, and in ripping them up, you show everyone that the so-called rules are just polite conventions, just manners. After you rip them up you can create your own manners, your own rules. If you want to." But David Cummings (come on, it would have been too perfect otherwise) is just the catspaw for something far bigger and badder, something insistent that it has been horribly misrepresented by a human race that refuses to accept it, and has been so rude and blind as to call it the Devil. This could easily read as a defence of the status quo against the duplicity and ulterior motives of those calling for redistribution in the here and now, and reassessment of the past, which rather took me aback given Cornell's own politics. As such, it's maybe for the best that, as the story goes on, it becomes clearer that no, Cummings and co. are the representatives of something much more like a magical Brexit, with all the Laurence Fox victim mentality and toxic nostalgia that entails. The problem being, the more explicit that analogy becomes, the more any happy ending for the ragged forces arrayed against them risks coming across like unconvincing West Wing wish-fulfillment.

Similarly risky, in some ways, is new point-of-view character Zoya, a Ukrainian immigrant unaffected by the mystical rain which left the townsfolk able to sense magic. Already an outsider in this not terribly multicultural patch of England, she's now doubly excluded and wondering "why everyone here is now bugfuck crazy in the head". Which, again...having the foreigner be the one failing to appreciate English magic? That could easily go very wrong. It comes together, of course it does, but this does assume someone with an itchy outrage finger is going to finish the whole book and interpret it charitably, something several recent incidents have shown to be optimistic. I really hope they do hold off and get to the end, though, because the resolution of her plots is one of the most satisfying bits here.

And there are plenty of satisfying bits, even if I wasn't wholly sold on the thematic level. The invisible boundary which traps the village is at once a more grisly reworking of The Daemons and, not least in its apparently inconsistent lethality, a neat metaphor for lockdown and pandemic all at once (although of course it still needs to be a bit deadlier than 1%, or else people could hardly take it seriously as a threat, in fiction at least). More than that, though, Cornell fundamentally gets magic in a way you would hope anyone writing fantasy should, but which all too often they don't. "Influence and belief are the underpinnings of all the worlds, all the realities, as you'd say. Except perhaps this one, which has this physics thing, which I agree is a terrible idea, if I may say so." This from one of the fair folk, whose own system of government is something we see as monarchy, but whose Earthly version is a misunderstood, messed-up imitation. Yet it transpires that, without the countervailing weight of physics and bureaucracy and such, theirs is even more vulnerable to subversion by unscrupulous operators. This is fabulous stuff, 'the king and the land are one' thought through and played with, without ever being demystified. So likewise, in other realms a castle and a heart might also be one, and a mortal, even a wise woman, must think on her feet to wake an imprisoned sleeper. I wish I could believe in the finale, but I definitely enjoyed the journey.

[Adara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt this was a nice way to wrap up the series. It could also be revisited though. The ending would allow more without not having been wrapped up well. Lizzie and Autumn come into their own and they get Zoya as a new edition to their team. It’s amazing to me that even when people have been shown a new reality they don’t want to believe it’s true and still want someone else to take care of their problems.

[Sam Wescott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. I really wasn’t sure how the book was going to continue after the major loss in the last one, but it was really cool to see the story progress is such an evolved world. The secrecy being so altered was really interesting and I loved the new character. I’m glad Cornell didn’t abandon the themes of insider/outsider and believer/non-believer. They really enrich these stories.

[Al Tarancón · Rating 4 out of 5]

final de la saga. lo único malo es que al ser historias tan cortas, el desarrollo de los personajes se disuelve un poco. p Pero ha sido muy entretenido de leer. juntas las 5 historias y tienes un serial de la BBC de lo más entretenido.
a ver si hay algo más largo de Cornell por ahí. ojala siguiera la serie de la shadow police...

[Nichola · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have so many feelings about this little series. Firstly the whole is better than the sum of its parts.

Secondly Reverend Lizzie is my favourite character.

Thirdly I am definitely going to return to Lychford in a few years.

[Natalie aka Tannat · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

review to come

[Hobart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S LAST STAND IN LYCHFORD ABOUT?
When I talked about the last book, The Lights Go Out in Lychford , I said:

The conclusion was simply fantastic and heart-wrenching—with a last line that will drive you to the online bookstore of your choice to try to order the conclusion immediately.

And it picks up right from that point—Lychford has seen plenty of trouble and conflict the last few years, but this time, it's for all the marbles.

It's not supposed to be a final showdown between other-worldly forces and the defenders of the town. It's supposed to be some of the other-worldly forces just rolling into town, wiping out humanity in Lychford before moving out to the rest of the planet. But the crafty, wily, and stubborn trio that we've been following for the past few years have a thing or two to say about that. They may not be fully ready for what's coming their way, but that's not going to stop them—and as usual, we see that they're pretty good at adapting to whatever circumstances they find themselves in.

THE NEW CHARACTERS
What better time than the last volume of a series to introduce three major characters? (well, maybe 2 major and one minor—no pun intended). We meet both a new fairy and a new mortal (and her daughter) who both play significant roles in the final confrontation.

The fairy's quite possibly the most helpful representative of the species we've encountered, as far as Autumn and Lizzie are concerned. He's pretty entertaining as far as the reader is concerned. So that's a win all around.

The human, Zoya, is a newish resident of Lychford—struggling to keep her and her young daughter afloat. She's fully aware that strange things happened in town a few weeks before we meet her, but she doesn't understand it—and is in no rush to understand. All she cares about is finding rent money so she and Jas aren't evicted. I can't get into her role in things but Zoya's background, her personality, and circumstances make her a pleasant and important addition to this world and I'm glad we got to see her.

I don't have much to say about Jas, but I enjoyed her. She was a fun burst of innocence in grim circumstances.

AUTUMN AND LIZZIE
Naturally, the most important characters to the book are our returning protagonists. Lizzie's always been my favorite character, the one I could relate to most in this series. But...there's a lot of what she does in this installment that just annoyed me, it didn't feel like the same character to me (it's likely just my mood at the time). At the same time, I connected more with Autumn here than I'm used to.

Overall, though, I appreciated their character arcs (contained in this book and over the series, both). These two women—rebuilding a friendship, learning about a whole new (to them) world of magic and strangeness and fantastical beings—are not really de rigueur in Urban Fantasy. I enjoyed them for their novelty, but more than that, I thought they were solid, well-rounded, believable characters that were just a lot of fun to spend time with.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ THIS NEXT TO AN OPEN WINDOW
There's a claustrophobic feel to a lot of this book as Lychford is cut off from the rest of the world, and it gets worse as the book goes on. But there's one scene in particular where Autumn is micrometers (maybe nanometers) away from probable doom. Cornell nailed that scene in a visceral way.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT LAST STAND IN LYCHFORD?
This was exactly the conclusion this series needed. Cornell nailed the landing—teaching us a lot about the world (much of which we'd guessed, but now we know) and surprising readers the way things wrap up, while making it all feel inevitable and right. All along, this has felt like the most real, the most possible Urban Fantasy series—and even as cataclysmic events unfold, Cornell somehow makes it feel a whole lot more believable than any UF I can think of.*

* I think I said something similar about Amber Benson's Witches Echo Park series—and the two series have a similar feel, but I think Cornell does a slightly better job of it.

This series about a tiny English town standing between two worlds, as humanity's (unwitting) defense against beings from other worlds, other realities has really been a blast. I heartily encourage you to go back to Witches of Lychford and dive into this series.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Violent, fae and domestic

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, I think this is the strongest of the books, as it actually looks at what getting a new wise woman looks like for the village (and she's an immigrant!), along with the baddies making an attempt at rewriting Faerie to try to come for our world. Great, quick read from the library.

[Jacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the last of Paul Cornell Lychford novellas and between them they form one continuous story. In other words, don't start here, but do seek out the whole lot and enjoy.

With Judith gone, it's up to Autumn (magic shop owner) and Lizzie (vicar) to save the sleepy Cotswold town of Lychford from an incursion of enemy magic which will not only destroy the town, but the universe as well. Right then... better not muck it up, ladies. The enemy intends to destroy all borders between worlds to the detrement of the fae and the humans. Judith might be gone, but she's certainly not forgotten, and she's left help. There's a new viewpoint character, Zoya, a Ukrainian immigrant single mum who has mysteriously been unaffected by the magical rain which made the townsfolk able to sense magic (which makes her wonder "why everyone here is now bugfuck crazy in the head"). Expect exploding fairies, the return of a previous antagonist, a message from beyond the grave, some gruesome deaths, and three brave women trying to save the universe. It's a satisfying end to the Lychford cycle.

[Michael]

Cornell could have done a lot worse in this conclusion to his 5-book (novella) series focused on three women who reluctantly take on the role of protecting a small English town from horrors that emerge from the woods. One of those women, the grumbly old Judith, gave her (already fading) life for the town in book 4. Book 5 is, as the title very plainly states, a last stand against some very potent malevolent entities that want to claim not only Lychford but the world. As in the previous books, the friendships and conflicts among the witches take center stage, along with the difficulty they share in protecting the oblivious townspeople when only they can see the "world behind the world". Cornell's approach to the witches of Lychford is not unlike Terry Pratchett's witches of Lancre from the Discworld series; humanistic, (mostly) gently critical of human foibles, and thick in social commentary. It's sad but understandable that Cornell is wrapping things up for Lychford; I look forward to seeing where he goes next.

[Artur Nowrot]

A great ending to the series, which offers an incisive look at the desires that animated the vote for Brexit in England, and that animate similar phenomena in other parts of the world.

If there are any downsides, I'd say it's that the main plot overshadows the personal plotlines of the characters. Zoya is delightful in her bluntness, and her relationship with Jas is plainly informed by the author's own experiences and it shows. But Lizzie's plot, as much as it's a very welcome addition to the character, feels a bit... perfunctory in how it's developed throughout the book. (I also don't understand why Lizzie doesn't just tell Autumn at the end.)

Overall, though, I loved the magical England this series presented.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a satisfactory wrap-up for a series that kept raising the stakes. Cornell didn't hesitate to continue that trend. It's not always clear what the Bad Guys are trying to achieve, but perhaps that's the point - they are so into what they are doing that they may have lost track of why they are doing it.

Cummings and Finn and the King, to name only three, seem to be considerably unalike; but I guess we won't be getting into that in a series of novellas.

I liked the slow introduction of the newest Important Villager. And I had to wonder if Shaun the policeman wasn't a tribute to Terry Pratchett, where Shawn Ogg ("our Shawn") is at once Lancre's police force, palace guard, head butler, commander of the army, and many other things.

[Sirbriang2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE LAST STAND IN LYCHFORD is the fifth and final novella in Paul Cornell’s Lychford series. The conflict that has been building up over the previous two volumes (the first two essentially just set the table for this closing trilogy) finally comes to a head, and the titular Witches of Lychford find themselves without the knowledge and experience of their occult tutor for the first and worst possible time.

The biggest problem with the last two entries in this series is that they felt incomplete, like the endings were rushed. LAST STAND does not share this weakness. The ending feels deserved, and this felt like an appropriate ending point for what the first book initially introduced; enough is also left open so that, if Cornell so chose, the story could continue again in the future.

What limits this story is that an important character is introduced and left fairly underdeveloped in the second half of the book. If the series was continuing, I wouldn’t mind as much, but for a final volume I would have liked a bit more.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Autumn and Lizzie work to save Lychford from an attack by faeries/an angel/maybe something else.

I was really disappointed in this last book. I loved the first couple of novellas in the series and liked the characters of Lizzie and Judith in particular. After that, I feel like I kept reading the next books, hoping and wanting them to be as good as the beginning, and they didn't pull through. The magic system in this series was a little too lackadaisical for me - it seemed to consist of really, really trying to the point of maybe grunting and then maybe it would work. I started skimming in this last book through the pages of Autumn walking through Fairy and Zorya kind of coming out of nowhere but I still enjoyed Reverend Lizzie.

[Tango · Rating 2 out of 5]

For four books, Paul Cornell wove an intricate, elegant narrative with three finely detailed main characters. In spite of the cost/page being really high, I willingly paid my credits because I enjoyed the nice balance and respect for all the characters he showed and the plot lines were engaging. Then this. This fifth story was not necessary - book 4 has a much more satisfying conclusion - and everything I loved about Judith, Lizzie, and Autumn was either ignored or trashed. In addition, the plot is not as engaging and lacks the internal logic of the previous books. When I re-read this series (and I will), I will stop with Book4 and try to forget I read this last disappointing book.

Emma Newman delivers a nice performance.

[Jayme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this series a couple years ago. Listened to the first two in one sitting. The third and fourth books were a little rambling but this final book was an excellent way to leave things.

I do feel the magic system is a bit vague, which is more prominent in this final book. It might just be me but I had a difficult time picturing many of the magical actions of the characters. I understood the boundaries and dimensions. But the way the characters perform their personal magic is very fuzzy to me. This didn't take away too much from the enjoyment, but if you're someone looking for a clear magic system in a fantasy, it's not here.