Pages

Monday, February 20, 2012

CSFF Blog Tour Day One: The Realms Thereunder

The Realms ThereunderTo be honest, I have not yet finished this month's selection, Ross Lawhead's The Realms Thereunder, a situation I hope to rectify this evening. The destination is in sight but there are a few more turns in the tunnel.

Set in England and Scotland for the most part, the story centers on Daniel Tully and Freya Reynolds and goes back and forth between their present lives and what happened to them eight years before when they were schoolmates, both thirteen years old. On a school trip to a church in Abbingdon in the Britsh Midlands, the pair go missing and are found two months later in Scotland. They stumble on a passage in the old church to a world underground. There, they encounter warriors from Alfred the Great's time and a fortress city called Niðergeard on a vast underground plain that is under seige. Evil forces and creatures dwell deep underground. Centuries before, they were driven from the lands above ground. The defenders of Niðergeard are part of the defences that keep the evil at bay.

The other half of Daniel's and Freya's story finds them in Oxford. Daniel is living on the streets while Freya is a student. Their earlier experiences have effected them in dramatically different ways. Daniel still carries on the fight against the evil they encountered underground. He's convinced something momentous and possibly horrific is about to happen, that the evil is welling up and invading the present. Freya is mentally unstable and suffers from a compulsive disorder. She wants to forget about what happened beneath the church but the experience has reshaped her view of history, which is now rather unorthodox. Daniel and Freya are being pursued because of what they know from their past experience and, like any good thriller, it's not clear who is friend and foe.

Another thread of the narrative follows Alex Simpson, an officer in the Northern Constabulary. He's tracking crime in Scotland, looking for crime patterns--missing or mangled livestock, suicides, robberies--that might point to suspicious activity and finds it in Caithness, a sparsely populated area in northeastern Scotland. I would like to see more of Alex, but Lawhead only gives us a few chapters, perhaps laying the groundwork for the next book in the series.

Movement between worlds in Lawhead's story takes place at certain doorways, usually arches, and at between times, such as the time between day and night. These passages are also only open to certain people. The passage in the Abbingdon church opens beneath an arch and then closes, returning to a stone wall. Daniel passes from present-day Oxford to Elfland when he passes under the arch of a lychgate. The Realms Thereunder is a unique mix of fantasy and suspense elements, but it reminds me of many other books. First, with the name Lawhead on the cover, I can't help thinking about ley-travel from Stephen Lawhead's Bright Empires series when Ross Lawhead's characters jump between worlds. Like C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, much of the action takes place underground. The elves Daniel encounters are a far cry from the generally noble elves in Tolkien. Lawhead's elves are dangerous, a mix of good and cunning nastiness, reminiscent of Lord Dunsany's elves or those brothers from Neil Gaiman's Stardust who must kill off their siblings to claim the crown.

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of The Realms Thereunder from the publisher.

Book Giveaway: Fellow CSFF blogger Sarah Sawyer is hosting a contest during the tour so stop by her blog to register.

To read more about Ross Lawhead and his work, check out his blog at www.rosslawhead.com/blog.

To read what other CSFF bloggers are saying, follow the links below.

Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Melissa Carswell
CSFF Blog Tour
Theresa Dunlap
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Victor Gentile
Tori Greene
Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Rebekah Loper
Marzabeth

Shannon McDermott
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirriam Neal
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Joan Nienhuis
Crista Richey
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Shane Werlinger
Nicole White
Rachel Wyant

4 comments:

  1. I admire your ability to spell Niðergeard.

    I'm stopping by on the blog tour. In accordance with something I wrote on my blog, I'm hiding a virtual tin of Tiger Balm on your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree about Alex. I really enjoyed this part of the book and I hope we see more of him in the next book. Great review!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great summary of the story, Jeff. You always do a good job sketching out the particulars. I wish I had your knack. Twists in the tunnels--I suspect I know right where you are in the book. ;-)

    Happy reading.

    Becky

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think the fact or your bringing out a Gaiman comparison is going to make my Enginerd even more excited about reading this one.

    ReplyDelete