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Summary
Summary
The obsidian mirror. Its power is great and terrible. Men have been lost in it, the dead brought back to life through it, and the future annihilated by it. Or this is what will happen unless the mirror is destroyed. Three people seek the mirror: the first has been sent from the future to shatter its power; the second will protect the mirror at all costs, obsessed with its power; and the third needs the mirror to find a murdered father and save his life. But only one can succeed.
The mirror can send you to the past, but it will not bring you back.
With superb world-building that includes the real world, the faery world, and a dystopic future, this hauntingly astonishing adventure is the start of a new trilogy from the master of the sci-fi/fantasy genre, Catherine Fisher. Fans of Orson Scott Card, Dr. Who, Shakespeare, and Blade Runner won't be disappointed.
Author Notes
Catherine Fisher, acclaimed poet and novelist, was born in Newport, Wales. She graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in English and a fascination for myth and history. She was named the first Children's Laureate of Wales and was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet Queen Elizabeth. She is the author of the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling books Incarceron and Sapphique.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this dramatic beginning to a new trilogy, the talented Fisher (Incarceron) again creates a plot that veers between science fiction and fantasy. The mirror of the title, a dangerous gateway to other time periods, is being pursued by not one but three equally unpleasant and obsessive mad scientists. One of them, Oberon Venn, is the master of spooky Winter-combe Abbey, as well as a famed mountaineer and archaeologist. Jake Wilde, Venn's teenage godson and his equal in arrogance, has been expelled from boarding school and shipped off to Winter-combe, where the boy plans to accuse Venn of having murdered Jake's father. Meanwhile, a trio of young women-one from the Victorian past, one from the present, and one from a dystopian future-have their own plots going, as do Jake's bluff English professor, a pair of enslaved changelings, a "Replicant" from the future, and Summer, queen of the Shee (fairies), who, conveniently enough, lives in the woods surrounding Wintercombe. Somewhat over the top emotionally, and perhaps a tad overly complex, Fisher's tale should nonetheless appeal to a wide audience. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Jake Wilde gets himself expelled from his posh private school for one purpose: so he can be sent back to his guardian Oberon Venn and accuse him of murdering his father, David. But when Jake arrives at Venn's decaying estate, Wintercombe Abbey, he learns that David wasn't murdered. David disappeared while he and Venn were experimenting with a Victorian time-machine made of an obsidian mirror, and Venn is as frantic as Jake to retrieve him. Nor is Venn alone in his interest in the mirror and its time-travel powers: a ghost from the past, a girl from the future, and even Summer, queen of the Shee (fairies), all want to use the mirror for their own purposes. This plot-driven fantasy by the author of Incarceron (rev. 1/10) compensates for its unremarkable prose style with sheer copiousness -- in wintry descriptions of Wintercombe Abbey and allusions to multiple mythologies, classical and folkloric. Fisher's sentences are short, propulsive, and transparent, emphasizing the visual. The story is amply punctuated with narrow-escape scenes and, in its time-travel plot, hints at thinking about how acts of the present impinge on the future. The first in a projected trilogy. deirdre f. baker (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
In this series opener a boy searching for his father, a mysterious girl, a reclusive genius tormented by his wife's death, and a fairy changeling struggling to stay human converge at ancient Wintercombe Abbey, lured by the promise of the Obsidian Mirror. Found in the 1800s and taken from its owner by treachery, the mirror can open a portal into the past, but those who venture in are often lost. While Jake, looking for his father, and Sarah, sent from the future to destroy the mirror, are arguably the stars here, Fisher taps into the universal desire to right past wrongs with a large cast of interconnected characters, all sympathetic in their need for the mirror yet disturbing in the lengths they will go to procure it. Following the particulars can get hairy, but Fisher effectively alternates brooding mystery with thrilling action. With evil future replicants in pursuit, magical fairies on the defense, and characters from all time lines converging, this blend of science fiction and fantasy is certified fresh. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fisher commanded attention, including that of Hollywood, for the two-book Incarceron series. Major promotion is planned to kick off this new trilogy.--Hutley, Krista Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
ALL successful novels for young adults must pass what one might call a narcissistic grandiosity test. Adolescents are, of course, at a developmental stage in which a certain level of passionate self-involvement is the norm. This is both natural and necessary. Good young adult novels must therefore reflect and dramatize the reader's fantasy of being victimized and misunderstood, yet secretly possessed of powers that allow mastery of one's destiny. Consequently, the characters in Y.A. fiction tend to live in special worlds, somehow set apart from those of other people. Often, they're either escaping from or saving their parents; if they discover a way to do both simultaneously, even better. But if the formula for Y.A. novels is straightforward, writing a good one is anything but. Truly excellent ones - Philip Pullman's "Golden Compass," Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games," John Green's "Fault in Our Stars" - are saturated in a strangeness and emotional intensity unmatched by most contemporary adult novels. Their binding commitment to self-seriousness and minimal irony, handled well, can accomplish moving stories grounded in psychological frankness, vulnerability and compassion. The Welsh writer Catherine Fisher is already an established figure on the Y.A. scene. Both "Incarceron" and its sequel, "Sapphique," were New York Times best sellers. In Britain, her many other books have also attracted praise, and she's been a finalist for the prestigious Whitbread Children's Book Prize. With "Incarceron," she hit on a conceit that passes the narcissistic grandiosity test with flying colors: a hero caught in a living prison that's been sealed for centuries, and a heroine trapped in an oppressive social order itself frozen in time. Neither an easy situation. The premise of Fisher's latest novel, "Obsidian Mirror," the first in a trilogy, involves an ancient mirror with enormous and rather sinister powers. The Chronoptika, as the mirror is known, is a time machine that can send people into the past. The problem is, though no one really knows how to use this remarkable device, everyone wants to control it. The large cast of characters includes the roguish hero, Jake, a present-day teenager who gets himself expelled from school so he can (yes) save his lost father; and a morally ambiguous Arctic explorer named Oberon Venn, who is desperate to bring his wife back from the dead. ("There's nothing I wouldn't do," he declares, "no one I wouldn't sacrifice!") There's also Sarah, a visitor from the future who wants to use the mirror to save her broken world. And within a fairy-realm, a sad and lovely changeling boy named Gideon longs to escape the capricious Shee-queen, Summer. FISHER gets the series up and running deftly. The first few chapters of "Obsidian Mirror" are especially good, as we watch Jake stage a daredevil prank during a dress rehearsal for a school production of "Hamlet" (note: motif of the lost father) and we see Sarah wounded and disoriented in a present she cannot comprehend. There are baggy bits in the middle while everyone runs about incoherently and the emotional and psychological stakes disappear in a plotty scramble of who wants the mirror and why. But by the end we're back online, hoping things pan out well for the assorted dramatis personae. Not shockingly, the book ends on a cliffhanger. Fisher's writing here is uneven, sometimes clumsy, but there are good bits too, like the scenes in Victorian London where Jake teams up with an appealing street waif named Moll, who speaks a knockoff Dickensian dialect peppered with rozzers, cullies, peelers, doss pads, filchers and drabs. The fairyland passages are convincingly magical, attesting to Fisher's deep interest in myth and folklore. "Obsidian Mirror" is an engrossing, enthralling fiction, adroitly positioned to reflect the needs of her core demographic. Starting with Narcissus' obsession with his own watery image, the search for and delight in one's reflection is fundamental to every account of psychological narcissism, whether healthy or pathological. Fisher's adolescent readers, consumed by their own daily struggles as superpowered beings whom nobody understands, will find their compelling likenesses in Fisher's magical mirror. Sophie Gee, an associate professor of English at Princeton, is the author of "Making Waste," a book about 18th-century literature, and a novel, "The Scandal of the Season."
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6 Up-In an exciting opening chapter, Jack Wilde's plan to get kicked out of boarding school works perfectly. He is sent to his wealthy guardian's home in the English countryside, where he plans to confront his guardian and godfather, Oberon Venn, about his father's disappearance. The teen suspects Venn of murder, but discovers that the truth is far more complicated. Venn, his butler, and numerous cats rattle around in Wintercombe Abbey, working on experiments with the Chronoptika, an ancient device that allows people to travel through time. The machine's history is murky and there are no instructions as to its safe use. Sarah, a young woman with her own secrets and interests in the Chronoptika's power, joins the household. A scarred man, an evil Replicant, and a Time Wolf prowl around, and the Wood surrounding the Abbey is full of hidden dangers. There is a notebook that communicates with the future, and in the Wood, the Shee add a Celtic fairy element to the story. The plot is told from varying points of view and set in different times. During his time travels, Jack trails his father to 1848 London, where he is befriended by a street urchin before being sucked back to the present. Sarah, in turn, is from a future that will be desolate if she does not complete her mission. The several interesting story lines have their moments, but the many loose ends make it clear that this trilogy opener is not meant to stand alone.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Classic fantasy, horror and literary tropes mingle in uneasy tension in this ambitious, maddening, fascinating opener to a projected trilogy. A schoolboy hellbent on avenging his father's death; an escaped psychiatric patient (or, perhaps, a time-traveling revolutionary sent back to prevent a dystopian future); a changeling ensorcelled in a frozen fairyland; a thrill-seeker ready to sacrifice anything to undo the death of his wife; and a jaded Victorian whose theft of an occult artifact reverberates through past and present: Five separate storylines collide during a solstice blizzard at a remote Gothic ruin of an estate. Continually unveiling new facets, the tale creates a dizzying sensation, perpetually teetering on the brink of revelation only to fall headlong into deeper mystery. No author is better than Fisher at weaving disparate narratives, characters, even genres into an enthralling tapestry, nor at highlighting exactly the right detail to invest the whole with chilling significance. Unfortunately, so much time is spent crafting the pattern and atmosphere of the intersecting threads that readers are left befuddled as to what, precisely--if anything--actually happens over the course of the plot. Readers will be dazzled, captivated, frustrated and desperate for the next installment. (Science fiction/fantasy. 12-18)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
