Kathryn Hughes of The Guardian left stunned by Stroud
Kathryn Hughes writes for the Guardian and has recently reviewed Jonathan Stroud’s wonderful Heroes of the Valley. She was glowing in her praise for his latest work:
“Children’s fiction of the past 30 years has been laced with sub-Tolkienian whimsy – all those quest narratives set in northern European winterscapes, prefaced with elaborate maps and a long list of characters with Norse names. Heroes of the Valley has a map, and it’s certainly jolly cold, and the names could well be Norse, but there the similarities to cookie-cutter fantasy end. Written out of a deeply felt world, and with a taut, disciplined voice that knows its Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as well as its Harry Potter, Jonathan Stroud’s new book is, quite simply, stunning.”
Heroes of the Valley reviewed in the The Guardian
FantasyBookReview.co.uk reviewed Heroes of the Valley recently and was no less taken with this spell-binding fantasy tale:
“It has been quite a long time since I have enjoyed a book this much. The feelings of warmth and enjoyment experienced are similar to those felt when reading The Hobbit; that is how good this book is. Although this may be my first encounter of Stroud’s work it will certainly not be the last and if the Bartimaeus trilogy is anywhere near as good as this then I am in for an absolute treat. I would highly recommend this book to all, regardless of age, an enthralling tale told by a master storyteller.”
Heroes of the Valley – full book review on FantasyBookReview.co.uk
Since 2002 Kathryn Hughes has written regularly for the Guardian, contributing pieces on history and biography to the Review and opinion pieces to the Comment pages. She is a contributing editor to Prospect magazine and also writes for the Times Literary Supplement and the Economist. Her particular interests are Victorian history and contemporary popular culture.
Jonathan Stroud was born in Bedford and grew up in St Albans. He always had a burning desire to write a full-length work of fiction which he would have wanted to read when he was younger, and so after graduating from York University he embarked on a publishing and writing career in the game book and non-fiction department at Walker Books. He moved to Kingfisher Publications to edit children’s non-fiction, and for a time juggled working with writing; but Jonathan is now a full-time writer.
Posted: January 10th, 2009
Author: Lee
Categories: Fantasy Book Review, Jonathan Stroud
Do you have something to add to this post? Please leave a comment
Book of the Month
Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson
On the Letherii continent the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen. The fate awaiting the Bonehunters is one no soldier can prepare for, and one no mortal soul can withstand - the foe is uncertainty and the only weapon worth wielding is stubborn courage.
Latest interviews
Interviews plus question and answer sessions with authors, narrators and publishers.
Must-reads
The following reviews are of books that begin the very best fantasy series available.
Competition: Win Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars trilogy
Alyss, born in Wonderland, is destined to be a warrior queen. After a bloody coup topples the Heart regime, Alyss is exiled to another world entirely, where she is adopted into a new family, renamed Alice and befriended by Lewis Carroll. At age 20 she returns to Wonderland to battle Redd and lead Wonderland into its next golden age of imagination.
Special Feature: Fantasy Book Review talks to the Book View Cafe
Book View Cafe is a cooperative site created by a group of writers - including internationally renowned authors Katharine Kerr, Ursula Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre - who want to take advantage of the internet's possibilities for reaching a wider audience and to distribute their work directly to their readers. The Book View Cafe is a place where you can find free, original fiction plus the authors' best and out-of-print work for a fee. Fantasy Book Review spoke to Book View Cafe member, science fiction author and memoirist Chris Dolley in February 2010.
Special Feature: Understanding the author of Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll, the elusive author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, has been the subject of enduring fascination for the past hundred years. The destruction of many major documents about his personal life by his descendants has only magnified the mystery. Jenny Woolf's biography, published to coincide with the release of the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film, lays waste to the myths and suspicions that have obscured Carroll's reputation by placing him firmly in the context of his own time.
