“Children’s writers,” said Merlin. “Dangerous bunch. They cause us a lot of trouble.”
“How?” asked Susan.
“They don’t do it on purpose,” said Merlin. He opened the door. “But quite often they discover the key to raise some ancient myth, or release something that should have stayed imprisoned, and they share that knowledge via their writing. Stories aren’t always merely stories, you know." [p. 76]
Susan Arkshaw's mother has always been rather vague about Susan's father: so Susan, who's won a place at the Slade to study art, decides to head up to London a few months before her course starts, in the hope of discovering the other half of her heritage.
It's 1983, but not quite as we know it: Margaret Thatcher is the second female PM, after Clementina Atlee, and prime-time TV show The Professionals features Raelene Doyle and Georgina Cowley. (I don't think we ever discover the alt-Bodie's first name.) In this London, booksellers -- like molecules -- come in two varieties. The right-handed ones are researchers; the left-handed ones are warriors, keeping at bay the various magical and supernatural entities that lurk just below the surface of reality. Susan, visiting her Uncle Frank, swiftly encounters a left-handed bookseller by the name of Merlin, who (a) is gender-queer (b) stabs Uncle Frank with a Georgian hatpin (c) really cares about clothes. Susan, tending towards the punk end of the spectrum, is fascinated by Merlin, and it's mutual: however, before she can ask him on a date, the two have to elude a variety of nasties, including Uncle Frank ("he's not your uncle"), the Shuck, a Fenris wolf, goblins, and some perfectly ordinary police constables.
This is an entertaining, breathless, headlong romp, with a sense of real danger and a thorough grounding in British folklore. Susan is preternaturally level-headed: sometimes, though she's the 'chosen one', she's less of a protagonist than a foil for fey, flighty, vain, brave Merlin, who is vexing and charming in equal parts. Susan does discover her heritage, and comes into her own at the climax of the novel: and she's practical enough to counterbalance Merlin's mercurial tendencies.
I enjoyed this a lot, and am hoping for a sequel: I'd like more of Merlin's 'shape-shiftery' nature, and his twin sister Vivien's story. While it definitely has the feel of a YA novel, it doesn't flinch from nastiness, and the underlying world-building has a great many unexplored possibilities.
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