Review: Lud-in-the-Mist

Lud-in-the-Mist - a prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything 'other', preferring to believe only in what is known, what is solid. Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past; a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he realises that something is changing in Lud - and something must be done.

Lud-in-the-Mist is a hundred years old - but reads like it was written yesterday. In many ways, this is the ur-fantasy-novel. If you've read "Jonathan Strange" or "Sorcerer to the Crown" or any modern fantasy book - this is where it started.

It's a dream of a book - in a very literal sense. It feels like you're experiencing it while you're sleeping. It's not written in rhyming couplets, but has the same rhythm.

Some of the language is archaic - and I suspect it was deliberately outdated when it was first published. So make sure your eReader has a decent dictionary built in, because you'll be constantly looking up Olde English terms.

An enjoyable trip through a weird symbolic world.