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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2006, 404 pages
Paperback:
Sep 2007, 448 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Set in the world of the Half-Continent—a land of tri-corner hats and flintlock pistols—the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy is a world of predatory monsters, chemical potions and surgically altered people. For ages 12+
Set in the world of the Half-Continent—a land of tri-corner hats and flintlock pistols—the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy is a world of predatory monsters, chemical potions and surgically altered people. Foundling begins the journey of Rossamund, a boy with a girl’s name, who is just about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor. What starts as a simple journey is threatened by encounters with monsters—and people, who may be worse. Learning who to trust and who to fear is neither easy nor without its perils, and Rossamund must choose his path carefully.
Complete with appendices, maps, illustrations, and a glossary, Monster Blood Tattoo grabs readers from the first sentence and immerses them in an entirely original fantasy world with its own language and lore.
1
IT BEGAN WITH A FIGHT
foundling (noun) also wastrel. Stray people, usually children, found
without a home or shelter on the streets of cities or even, amazingly, wandering
exposed in the wilds. The usual destinations for such orphaned children are
workhouses, mills or the mines, although a fortunate few may find their way to a
foundlingery. Such a place can care for a small number of foundlings and
wastrels, fitting them for a more productive life and sparing them the agonies
of harder labor.
ROSSAMÜND was a boy with a girl’s name. All the other children of Madam
Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls teased and
tormented him almost daily because of his name. And this day Rossamünd would
have to fight his worst tormentor, Gosling—a boy who had caused him more misery
than any other, a boy he worked hard to avoid. Unfortunately, when it was time
to practice harundo, there was no escaping him.
At Rossamünd&...
Foundling, the first in the planned Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy, sucked our then twelve-year-old son in on the first page and spat him back out a couple of days later only after he'd read the book cover to cover (including the glossary and the 100 page appendix which particularly fascinated him) and pored over the maps and illustrations In the intervening period we did see him from time to time - for meals and breathless plot updates - but in essence, although his body was with us, his mind was somewhere in the Half-Continent! With illustrations reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy this is a book to kindle the imagination of any child who revels in fantastic worlds filled with fantastic creatures...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Lloyd Alexander, Newbery-winning author of The Chronicles of Prydain
..A remarkable new world, complete in every detail, totally convincing. Michael Cart, writer, professor, expert in children's and YA literature
Meticulously plotted, prodigiously imagined, and richly realized. Tamora Pierce, author of the quartets Song of the Lioness and Circle of Magic
I felt constantly at the edge of a gasp.D.M. Cornish was born in time to see the first Star Wars movie. He was five. It
made him realize that worlds beyond his own were possible, and he failed to eat
his popcorn. Experiences with C.S. Lewis, and later J.R.R. Tolkien, completely
convinced him that other worlds existed, and that writers had a key to these
worlds. But words were not his earliest tools for storytelling. Drawings
were.
He spent most of his childhood drawing, as well as most of his teenage and adult
years as well. And by age eleven he had made his first book, called "Attack from
Mars." It featured Jupitans and lots and lots of drawings of space battles. (It
has never been published and world rights are still available!)
He studied illustration ...
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