Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog
It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.
Currently reading
Belin's Hill, Catherine Fisher
Early on I was a bit sceptical about this book. It had all the hallmarks of a type of fantasy that has arguably been overdone - that is, the book inspired by Celtic myth. Perhaps the all-time grandmaster, as well as early pioneer of this type of work was Alan Garner, whom Fisher told me was a big influence. I could see that influence here. I felt that I could be in for something not all that interesting. As it went along, however it developed a very atmospheric tone - an atmosphere of spookiness and terror and menace that ratcheted up with every incident.
It was never all that clear what was going on until the very unexpected ending and Fisher turned a cliche of this kind of book completely on its head. Usually if weather is significant, it is the depths of an unnaturally fierce and snowy winter. Here it's a ferociously hot summer. A clue to the reason for this comes from of all things the publication date of 1997. The years '94 - '97 were in reality ferociously hot in Britain, with records tumbling year after year, so it's easy to imagine the weather outside the book affected the weather inside the book.
So despite my initial doubts this turned out to be a good short novel, though not as good as some of Fisher's more recent works, where-in she has found her own voice more completely, or created a more original scenario, even when still calling on various mythologies from around the world.
4