The Immortals: Part 1

The book I am currently reading is extensive, so I will have to do it in two parts.

The book is called The Immortals. It is an epic, intriguing fantasy by Paul Stewart, Illustrated by Chris Riddel, and it is the tenth and last volume in a series called the Edge Chronicles. The Edge chronicles follows four people in three time periods, in a completely original and fantastical world. Chronologically, the series is made up of three trilogies plus one book: the Quint trilogy (The Curse of the Gloamgloazer, The Winter Knights, and Clash of the Sky Galleons), the Twig trilogy (Beyond the Deepwoods, Stormchaser, and Midnight Over Sanctaphrax), the Rook trilogy (Last of the Sky Pirates, Vox, and Freeglader), and finally, The Immortals. But, numbered chronologically and put into written order, they are: 4, 5, 6, 1, 7, 8, 9, 2, 3, 10. This is difficult to understand, but fortunately you can just look it all up on wikipedia.

But enough talking about the series; I have to review this one book. The plot so far is that a young adventurer, Nate Quarter, is simply making a living as a lamplighter, lighting lamps for the workers in the phraxmines (an incredible idea that I'm not going to explain right now). But of course, the precious phraxcrystals the workers are digging out are being hoarded by a corrupted, treacherous creature. Eventually, Nate must leave the place where he lives, with only his belongings, his friend Slip, and his abilities. He has to find a new job and place to stay. Doesn't seem like a 'epic fantastical fantasy' yet, does it? Well, so far, it kind of isn't. But what the inside cover tells me is that a giant war is coming, as well as a storm like no other. This plot echoes plots of past books in this series, actually, but never before has Stewart combined the 'war plot' and the 'storm plot'. Also, I have full faith in his ability to make something interesting and new happen. Another plot point which is just budding is that in the heavenly garden of Riverrise, an ancient one-eyed waif is living. Something, however, is not quite right. At this point, though, I have no idea what.

I applaud Stewart for including Riverrise again; it was only even mentioned before in one book. In Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, Twig and his friends have to make a long and perilous journey through expansive forests to get there. But in this book, the map has expanded overwhelmingly. To put this in perspective, the map is approximately fifty times larger than before. And Riverrise is completely on the opposite side of the map from where Twig and his friends set off. The whole scope of this enormous world just got gigantic. I can't really express my amazement at this, so if you want to understand better, get the books at the library or something.

But moving on to the non-plot values.
Where I am right now, I am already impressed, once again, with Stewart's rich, full writing. It keeps me reading even though I am not totally engrossed by the story yet. But his skilled use of descriptions, scene details, and character idiosyncrasy is just very well done. I am also very impressed with Riddel's illustrations, but that's not the most important thing. The problem is, at my point in the book, there is not much to say but that the writing, drawings, characters, plot, everything about the book is wonderful. To put it in perspective, it is my second favorite series, second only to Harry Potter.

One of the things that most impresses me is Stewart's ability to make up such a detailed, amazing world, and keep it as interesting as he does. There are so many types of animals and creatures and places, I couldn't name them if I tried. I very much like how through the different time periods, the technology progresses. For example, in this book, the world has learned how to harness the power of phraxcrystals and phraxdust to use for all sorts of things. For one thing, there are now pistols and guns powered by phrax-something, whereas in past books, there mostly have just been swords and knifes.

The one thing I don't like about this book is its lack of a table of contents. This, however, does not actually take down the value of the book in any way. So it is a small thing, not worth going into, that simply forces me to use a bookmark, which I do anyway.

I hope that like in the other books, Nate is somehow related to the main characters of the rest of the series, but I don't know yet, which is the result of writing a review while reading such a long book. And to wrap it up, since I am not done with the book, I wont give it a rating, but I will say thanks for reading, and await another review soon.