Ian Beck

Dickens' London meets the Truman Show ... Welcome to Pastworld. Imagine that London has been reinvented as a theme park; that Dickensian London has been recreated in every detail. Rich tourists undergo immersion training, get costumed and are then brought in by airship to become 'gawkers' in this new, old world. Caleb, son of Lucius Brown, one of the park's original imagineers, is due to arrive for his first visit with his father.

Pastworld is peopled by the 'residents', most of whom show more officially live and work there as Victorians, giving the punters an authentic experience. But there are also some unofficials - pickpockets, fences and entertainers, plus 'The Fantom', who has taken on the unofficial role of Jack the Ripper and is working with a band of 'ragged men' to strike terror throughout the city. The park's owners are very, very worried indeed, and they send in a detective to hunt him down.

The last piece of the puzzle is seventeen year old Eve who lives with her father Jack; she has no memories of anything before the age of fifteen. In Truman Show style, she doesn't know she is living in a theme park. However she is never allowed to go out on her own and is beginning to wonder why. Jack returns from an excursion out and starts to explain a little to her:

'I have to tell you something, Eve' he said, in an unsteady voice. 'You may often have wondered why I look after you so carefully. The truth is that someone is after us. They have been for a long while now. I have deliberately kept this from you, Eve, just for your own protection. I have always been so very, very careful for you. But anyhow this bad, bad person has got a sniff of you, and as soon as it can be arranged we will have to move somewhere else. Somewhere far from here.'
He stood and paced up and down in a twitching panic. I could make no sense of it at all. Here was my mystery.
'How would such a dangerous person know anything about us?' I said.
'He knows,' Jack said nodding. 'As I said, he's got a sniff of you.'
Something alerted me in those repeated words: 'A sniff of you'. That surely meant it is not 'us' at all but just me alone, myself - someone is especially after me. It was suddenly clear to me.
I am a deep secret.
I am a hidden person.
I am to be kept safe for ever. I was a fairy-tale princess, like Rapunzel, locked away from the world in her high tower."

This is the first novel for young adults from children's author Ian Beck, which has plenty for grown-ups to admire too. I thoroughly enjoyed its cultural touchstones, murderous action and twisty plot. I particularly liked the interleaving of the futuristic and Victorian milieux which resulted in much more than a straight-forward melodrama. Without spoiling anything, there is plenty of room for a sequel (please?).

If you've read The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G W Dahlquist and enjoy teen fiction, you'd certainly like this book. (9/10) show less

Gaslit Victorian London fuels the imagination - the fog-ridden world of Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and Dickens. And even in the sanitized future, it continues to exercise its pull, to the point where the actual London has been turned into a huge theme park dedicated to experiencing the authentic Victorian-era city. And it is authentic - from the clothing, to the dirt and poverty, all the way to the seemingly uncatchable serial killer, the Fantom who haunts the streets of Pastworld show more looking for a girl with unusual blue eyes.

My Thoughts: Pastworld reminded me a bit of a steampunk version of Margaret Haddix' Running out of Time, in that our heroine, Eve, has no idea that she is living in a theme park until she runs away to join a traveling circus. I loved the blending of the old-fashioned Victorian lifestyle with futuristic technology, and I thought the entire set-up of the Fantom was incredibly intriguing. The whole thing is twisting and thought-through to the point where I almost can't say much about the plot for fear of giving away some of the joy of experiencing the novel.

There were some things about the characters that struck me as a bit off - I never really grew attached to any of them, and I never figured out what the feud between Bible J's master and the ragged men was all about (a blatantly waving loose end). The characters all seemed a bit like placeholders - I think I liked Caleb the best for his doubts about leaving his father, but Eve was rather flat and Bible J seemed like a carbon copy of the Artful Dodger a few years older. The setting is really the saving grace of the story because it is masterfully described.

Beck does an excellent job of sprinkling clues to help solve the mystery and foreshadowing of the final showdown throughout the novel, and it is a delight to watch the plot unfold eerily in the flickering gaslight. But I have to admit to being less impressed by the end. There's some unfortunate monologuing, for starters, but really the climactic scene is rather anti-climactic - particularly since it ends so abruptly. While I didn't like the end, I was enamored of Pastworld, of Jago the circus clown, and of the originality of the premise. Pastworld is definitely a page-turner, I barely put it down.

I did like that while there is room left for a sequel should Beck care to write one (his interview at Wondrous Reads suggests maybe), this installment of the story stands alone - thank goodness for THAT in a world full of YA trilogies! show less

The map makes no sense, and wouldn't be helpful if it did. The title doesn't, either, as there's nothing about 'secrecy' in the story (except that Jollity the crow isn't to reveal to Tom that he's really a sprite). However, it's a neat fairy tale for 'boys' who like fairy tales but don't want to be seen reading 'girly' books.

"Hope makes a bad supper but a good breakfast."

The Jacks do know how to cook.

There is some ambiguity about the bad guy. He created the sprite gold, the giants, the show more goose... indeed the Truehearts did steal his creations, especially the father is to fault for killing the first giant, no?

I will not read the sequels. show less

Reviewed by Andrea for TeensReadToo.com

Pastworld is a "theme park" set in the Victorian times of London. The visitors, called Gawkers, get submerged in that lifetime. They must follow strict rules to keep to the authenticity.

The story is about Eve, a girl who was shut away in a house in Pastworld and only let out with her guardian, who runs away to join the circus. She doesn't remember much of her childhood, but she dreams of being free. The story is also about Caleb, a visitor to Pastworld show more whose life is turned upside down when he's a witness to a murder. Before long, he is labeled as the murderer and his father is kidnapped right before his eyes. He is taken in by a pickpocket named Bible J. And then there's the Fantom. He is a serial killer with a gruesome calling card.

These three characters are all involved in some way - a very shocking way!

PASTWORLD was definitely...interesting. Working for Disney, I saw that this was about a "theme park" and was excited. But I wouldn't exactly call Pastworld a theme park; it's just a city set in the past.

You could definitely tell this book was written by a guy, since it was really gory. I wasn't expecting that, but it didn't turn me off from my reading. Sometimes, I didn't really care about the characters. While I wanted to care about Eve, I didn't feel like there was enough about her for me to feel sympathetic about. That being said, this was a good science fiction/mystery book. I spent a lot of the storyline trying to figure out what was going on, and I would say that about two-thirds of the way through, I finally figured it out. And it was a good twist!

I feel that the ending wrapped up too quickly, as I would have liked to have read more about what happened at the end scene with the Fantom and Eve. Still, a good read overall, though. show less