Cirrus & Endymion
I'm reading a book called Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton. It came out a few years ago, but I've just read an advance copy of Skelton's new novel which is called Cirrus Flux. (Thanks so much to the fine folk at Penguin for giving me a sneak peek).
Cirrus Flux is very, very good. But really I should wait to tell you about it as it won't be available in stores until August. So I won't tell you about how it's an eighteenth-century romp or how it gives an interesting view of London's Foundling Home and of peculiar hybrids of entertainment and scientific investigation during that period. I won't tell you that the book would make a very fine film, and that more than that, it makes a very fine book. I'll tell you all that closer to the date in August when you can go to a bookstore and get a copy of your own.
Incidentally, there's a very fine book called A Home For Foundlings by Marthe Jocelyn (Tundra Books) which is chock-full of fascinating detail and great pictures. One poignant aspect of the Foundling home which stuck with me from reading this book was the collection of tokens left behind by those who hoped to one day be reunited with their children, and this detail becomes an important plot element in Cirrus Flux.
So now I've gone back to Endymion Spring (both books are named for their heroes), which I somehow managed to miss when it came out. I may have filed it under L for later, which is where a number of books end up. I thought it was a fantasy title, but actually it's a sort of historical fantasy - blending a modern story about a boy whiling away the hours in the Bodleian Library and another boy, centuries earlier, apprenticed to the great Gutenberg.
Just by chance, I found this video online today and plan to spend a little time later on educating myself on things Gutenbergian before returning to the book.
Cirrus Flux is very, very good. But really I should wait to tell you about it as it won't be available in stores until August. So I won't tell you about how it's an eighteenth-century romp or how it gives an interesting view of London's Foundling Home and of peculiar hybrids of entertainment and scientific investigation during that period. I won't tell you that the book would make a very fine film, and that more than that, it makes a very fine book. I'll tell you all that closer to the date in August when you can go to a bookstore and get a copy of your own.
Incidentally, there's a very fine book called A Home For Foundlings by Marthe Jocelyn (Tundra Books) which is chock-full of fascinating detail and great pictures. One poignant aspect of the Foundling home which stuck with me from reading this book was the collection of tokens left behind by those who hoped to one day be reunited with their children, and this detail becomes an important plot element in Cirrus Flux.So now I've gone back to Endymion Spring (both books are named for their heroes), which I somehow managed to miss when it came out. I may have filed it under L for later, which is where a number of books end up. I thought it was a fantasy title, but actually it's a sort of historical fantasy - blending a modern story about a boy whiling away the hours in the Bodleian Library and another boy, centuries earlier, apprenticed to the great Gutenberg.
Just by chance, I found this video online today and plan to spend a little time later on educating myself on things Gutenbergian before returning to the book.
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