BLADE OF FIRE (10+)
by Stuart Hill
Chicken House, £12.99

THE HOLLOW PEOPLE (11+)
by Brian Keaney
Orchard, £10.99

OF THE 100 OR SO children’s books that I am sent each week, well over three quarters are fantasy. Where most critics blanche at the mention of two moons, hairy feet, wizards’ staffs and angels, I am an unabashed devotee of the genre, which makes me all the angrier at the bad stuff being published.

The very worst is G. P. Taylor’s The Curse of Salamander Street. I am appalled at the way this author has managed to rise on a minimum of talent and a maximum of self- publicising stunts (such as his claim that he was defending free speech when ejected from a school reading for using foul language).

Originally self-published before being taken on, absurdly, by Faber, he has got himself bracketed with C. S. Lewis by proclaiming his Christianity. Not that this would matter if he were a patch on Lewis, Rowling or Philip Pullman, but his poorly plotted fantasies do not merit being mentioned in the same breath as these.

Beadle, the former servant of the corrupt Parson Demurral, has escaped and crashed in a ball of fire — which has melted the fat off the crew of a nearby ship. Kate and Thomas, sailing with Jacob Crane, find its last sailor and get away to London. Hunted by Demurral, who wants to kill them, they soon find that, like Beadle, they are pursued by evil. A sequel to the equally dreadful Shadowmancer may sound no worse than many in outline, but Taylor’s writing is as underpowered as it is over-hyped, making it an effort to read.

Blade of Fire is the sequel to Stuart Hill’s Cry of the Icemark. Twenty years after their victory over the evil Scipio Bellorum, the original couple, Queen Thirrin and Oskar Witchfinder, find that again the tiny kingdom is menaced, and its alliance with talking snow leopards, werewolves and vampires is not going to be enough to save it. The half-crippled Prince Charlemagne finds unexpected support in the noble desert peoples who befriend him, fulfilling an ancient prophecy, and sweeps in to victory despite the machinations of his sister, Medea.

Hill is great at battle-scenes, and his benign werewolves and vampires are a pleasing twist on legendary monsters. However, his novel suffers from excessive padding and new characters. Had there been a good Medea and a bad Charlemagne it might have been a bit more interesting, but this time his fusion of multiple myths and histories feels stale. Everyone’s intentions are flagged up in advance, and the plot itself is so plodding that it will be a sad disappointment to fans.

Brian Keaney’s The Hollow People is by far the best of the bunch. Dante is a kitchen boy on the island of Tarnagar, a community dominated by the thoughts of Dr Sigmundus. Dreaming will get you locked up in an asylum, and adults drug themselves. Dante is tormented by the knowledge that his mother committed suicide, but when he becomes friendly with Bea, a doctor's daughter, and the mysterious political prisoner Semiramis, he discovers a very different version of events. Flying together through bomb-strewn seas, they join the resistance.

The novel is about the courage required to defy social convention (including the appearance of reality), a theme explored by all good and great fantasy writers, from Jan Mark to Kafka. Drugs, hypnosis and the sheer power of peer pressure all come into play as Dante and Bea struggle out of one circle of Hell and discover that the world is an illusion. This is a remarkable piece of writing, broodingly atmospheric and sympathetic towards its troubled teenaged protagonists.

The best children’s novels are those that make the real magical and the magical real. Yet realism is an increasingly scarce feature of modern childhood: garish, reconstituted fantasies with no moral fibre have, like Turkey Twizzlers for the mind, become all-too common. Buy with care.

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