R.J.'s Reviews > Foundling

This is a re-read, as I've been reading the series aloud to my youngest son, who adores all things large, scary and monstrous. The story meanders around a bit at first (rather like its boy hero, in fact!), and the prose can be unnecessarily florid and at times nearly opaque in its lavish use of invented vocabulary. But I've said, and I'll stand by my assertion, that D.M. Cornish is the most comprehensive and immersive world-builder since Tolkien.

He's also created a fantastic array of distinct and interesting characters, particularly Europe -- both feminine and fearsome, mercurial and laser-brilliant, and with the coolest monster-fighting powers anyone could wish for (zzzzzzzak!) Also, Sebastipole is my Half-Continent boyfriend and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. (This is how you can tell that this is a Very Serious Review.)

Anyway, I do love these books, even when they spend an unfashionable amount of time describing the scenery, the weather, and what everyone is wearing -- as befits the mind of an illustrator turned author who is as much in love with the world he's imagined as any trifling details of plot or action that may happen in it. (But there is a plot, honest, and also a really fantastic twist that I didn't see coming but which is deliciously obvious in retrospect. I can't wait until my son realizes what's going on, because he will LOSE HIS MIND.)