Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Edge Chronicles: The Curse of the Gloamglozer
Illustrator: Chris Riddell
Fiction Series
For ages 12 and up
Random House, 2009 ISBN: 978-0440420996
Quint is not at all pleased. His father, a sky pirate captain, has left him on Sanctaphrax to be apprenticed to Linius Pallitax, the Most High Academe. Quint would much rather be having adventures with his father on their ship, flying across the skies over their world, but he has to accept that for now he has to be a student, going to classes and helping Linius as best he can.
Quint soon discovers that Linius is up to something. The old man asks Quint to do all sorts of odd jobs, including going into the mostly abandoned Great Library to retrieve long forgotten barkscrolls. Worse still, Linius has Quint help him to get to a secret entrance which leads into the maze, the stonecomb that is the heart of the great floating rock of Sanctaphrax. Quint does not understand what his master is doing but whatever it is he knows that Linius is doing something dangerous and the boy is worried.
Quint then finds himself telling Linius’s daughter Maris what he has been doing with her father, and the two young people decide that they have to do whatever they can to help Linius even if it means going into the “stonecomb” inside Sanctaphrax. This is a place that is always changing, and it is also home to a horrific creature called a glister, a beast that feeds off the fear of others. Whatever they do, Quint and Maris must not get caught by this monster.
Eventually Quint and Maris discover what Linius has been up to the stonecomb and the truth is terrible. Somehow the two young people have to protect their world from the gloamglozer, the monster that Linius has created; somehow they have to prevent the gloamglozer from escaping from its prison.
This fourth book in the Edge Chronicles series, which is the first title in the Quint trilogy, takes the reader on a wild ride of adventure, loss, deceit, and fear. Against the backdrop of the power struggle that is gripping the academic world of Sanctaphrax, Quint and Maris try to understand and to come to terms with what Linius is up to.
This fascinating book is packed with bizarre characters, a sprinkling of which are downright evil. There is also the wondrous setting on the extraordinary floating rock with its fabulous buildings. Paired with a riveting story, these elements combine to give readers a book that is hard to put down, and a tale which further wets the appetite for more Edge Chronicles titles.
