 |
The Illmoor Chronicles:
The Ratastrophe Catastrophe
by David Lee Stone
(Hodder Children's Books, £5.99, 256 pages, paperback, first
published 2003, this edition published 15 January 2004.)
Review by Caleb Woodbridge
The Ratastrophe Catastrophe is the first book in The Illmoor
Chronicles, a tongue-in-cheek fantasy series. It begins with the  possession
of young Diek Wustapha by dark magic. He then develops a talent for
music that is quite literally enchanting. Meanwhile, the city of Dullitch
is experiencing something of an invasion of rats, and the Dullitch Council
decides that something must be done…
I don't know about you, but personally I enjoy reading children's books,
despite now being a bit too old to count as a child. Books written for
children are often simply unashamedly entertaining in a way that some
adult fiction seems rather ashamed to be. The discipline of keeping
the writing focused and fast-moving for an audience who will display
few qualms in switching over to the television or computer games if
they get bored helps avoid meandering and drawn-out plots, the recent
overlong Harry Potter books excepted. And many books allegedly
for children tackle big issues in a way that is interesting and thought-provoking
for anyone.
But sometimes a book comes along which brings me back down to earth
and reminds me that for every really great story, there are several
dull, unimaginative tales, the literary equivalent of the Saturday morning
television mush dealt out to preteens. Unfortunately, this book is one
of them.
Never judge a book by its cover; however, the computer-generated images
of two very cartoonish characters on the cover seem to me to be a good
reflection of the style of the book. The fantasy world David Stone creates
has a very definite air of artificiality. At times it seems as if he
is trying to replicate the humour of a television cartoon in print,
but to my mind at least this simply doesn't work. Having a thief's grappling
hook catch on the collar of a sleeping guard dog may be funny on screen,
but just seems rather daft in prose. Some of it also seems reminiscent
of the fantasy world of a slightly bland computer game, with stock-in-trade
magicians, trolls, thieves and so on populating the pages.
I don't know whether the map full of places with names like Spittle,
Legrash and Dullitch is supposed to be funny, but if it is, then it
in my opinion falls rather flat. If you want a chuckle-inducing fantasy
map, check out the one at the front of Diana Wynne Jones' hilarious
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.
Being a comic take on the tale of the Pied Piper, this book inevitably
and unfortunately also invites comparison with Terry Pratchett's The
Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. This is unfortunate because
The Amazing Maurice outshines this book on probably every count
- laughs, storytelling, character and intelligence. Pratchett's twist
of having intelligent rats in league with a talking cat and lad with
a penny whistle going from town to town being cause and cure of a plague
of rats, and charging a bagful of gold each time, was a clever and hilarious
twist on the story. It also enabled some genuinely thought-provoking
questions about the difference between animals and humans, the responsibilities
of intelligence and so on to be raised. Ratastrophe on the other
hand, just about does what it says on the tin - comic version of the
Pied Piper - but no more than that.
There's nothing particularly interesting or original or thought provoking
about it, no clever twists, no deeper questioning. The story is rather
unsatisfying, just concluding rather than really providing a satisfying
resolution. A catastrophe? No, merely inoffensively mediocre - neither
particularly bad nor actively any good. As a no-brainer, unchallenging
laugh you might enjoy it, but personally I was bored.
|
|
