Monster Blood Tattoo Bk2: Lamplighter

D.M.Cornish (author)

Humphrey Bower (reader)

Bolinda Audiobooks,Australia: May 2008; 13CDs (16hrs 5mins)

BAB: CD080500  

ISBN: 9781742014876 

extension vocabulary

Genres: adventure, fantasy

Issues: friendship, identity, loyalty, tolerance

Resisting the Branden Rose's invitation to become her teratotoligcal factotum, foundling Rossamund Bookchild has begun his training as an Emperor's Lamplighter. Isolated by his name, his sensitive nature and the fact that he arrived a week later than the other apprentices, Rossamund wonders if he will ever find his place in life.

It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it should be within the walls of Winstermill: the noble Lamplighter Marshall is being harried by the petty politics of the Master of Clerks; the roads are increasingly beset by fearsome monsters and the sinister Surgeon Swill carries out dark experiments in his hidden apartments. The arrival of an arrogant noble's daughter as an apprentice confuses the matter further and innocent Rossamund soon finds that life might have been more peaceful with the famous fulgar. But Rossamund himself is changing: strange feats of strength, the return of his monster-friend Freckle, and his old foundling master hinting at a strange mystery surrounding his birth. Can Rossamund find his way through this confusion to a clear sense of who he is?

The second in a remarkable series from a very talented new Australian writer, Lamplighter takes the reader further into the richly textured world of the 'Half-Continent'. An illustrator who was convinced to write by a wise publisher when she saw the twenty-third notebook in which he'd created backstory about this remarkable world, Cornish has a prodigious talent. Gifted readers will delight in the complex and idiosyncratic language, the range of strong and powerfully drawn characters, and the complex geographical and socio-political world in which they live.

Humphrey Bower is an exceptionally talented reader, creating a wonderful range of character voices that he carries so consistently through the audiobook that one hears them still when looking at the hard copy. Only in Stephen Fry's readings of Harry Potter have I heard such a consistent and expressive reader who is able to project such complex cast of personalities and respond to the slightest nuances of the text.

Cannot be too highly recommended.

Samer Series: Foundling (Bk1); Factotum (Bk3)