Foundling

Just fabulous. One of the most original and enthralling books I have EVER read. DM Cornish has created a completely fascinating new world. Full of rich characters, arcane history, thrilling magic and nuanced morals, the Half-Continent is more fully realized than a dozen Tolkien-rip-off fantasy lands. Rossamund is a wonderful character who is an excellent introduction to this world and its denizens. If you like books that have the power to transport you and spark your imagination, DO NOT MISS the Monster-Blood Tattoo series.

The second (much-longer) installment has just been released, so you can jump right into that one once you finish Foundling (and you will want to).

I'm not going to give a synopsis of the book, that's already done. Rather, I'll just give my thoughts.

This book is pretty awesome, and shows great potential for an ongoing series. The world springs into life, full formed, very well thought out, detailed, with a history and peoples (and monsters), prejudices and ambitions, careers and monies. The major characters, Rossamund and the Branden Rose, are fully formed. There is much to be discovered about the Branden Rose still, her history, her motives, her ambitions, but she is there.

The minor characters are waiting to be developed further, I can't wait to see the development of Fouracres, and I think we have not seen the last of Poundish.

In a land where people are brought up knowing that show more monsters are evil, where they kill wayfayers regularly, what can become of a boy who does not conform? The exploration of prejudices and biases seems fruitful for exploration in future books.

The author does a great job of expressing the atmosphere of the land, the haunting 'threwdish' impact of the land on the peoples.

I cannot wait to read book two.

I surely hope there are many more books to come. Please keep them coming Mr. Cornish.

-Shawn show less

An exceptional children's book with wonderfully realized characters and an elaborate fantasy world. Like Tolkien, Cornish has the ability to create a complex and completely believable world, totally with its own unique culture and laws of nature - so natural that you believe it could really exist on some other plane of reality. The illustrations are also beautiful, though the glossary was a bit dry after the action of the story. An interesting character development with Rossamund discovering that monsters are not all bad and that the task of killing them off indiscriminately is not what it's cracked up to be.

FOUNDLING is a delight - strange and gnarly, with a vaguely steampunk mentality. The characters are incredibly vivid, physically and as personalities, and the worldbuilding is astonishingly deep. Cornish takes a real delight in words - his language is fussy, prickly, onomateopoeic, as absorbing and tangled as his tale.

The twist in Cornish's world, the half-continent, is that it is on the eve of a technical revolution - but while ours was mechanical, theirs is biological. It's an oddly believable theory, somewhere in between Dr Frankenstein and modern cloning techniques. The result is both fantastic and ghastly - it's hard to call this world "magical" because the magic is so gruesome.

Rossamunde is small, and weak, and used to being show more bullied - in FOUNDLING, he must discover his courage. It's hard to realistically transition a character from a meek beginning to a brave conclusion; Cornish does the job beautifully. By the end, the reader sees in him a strength that has little to do with blustering and grandstanding; and has great hope for the man he will become.

The book reads like a fairy tale's evil twin. Within the dreary, but safe, walls of his orphanage Rossamunde dreams of adventure - he idolizes the heroes who bravely sally forth to slay monsters and protect the realm. But once he leaves the city, he discovers a very different reality. The monsters are not all bad; and the heroes are not all good. Which is not to say that there is any possibility of peace and cooperation between humans and the creatures who inhabit the wilds. That would be too easy as well.

I thought often of Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy while reading FOUNDLING, and it's eerie, same-yet-different world. I think Cornish's is better. I look forward to finding out how the series evolves. show less

I have a confession to make. This book has been sitting on my shelf for years. I've picked it up and put it down before. Twice. It was in my donation pile for a while until I friend who had read it begged me to pull it out and give it another go.

I'm glad I was convinced.

The opening of Foundling is slow and cliched, let's just get that out of the way. The reason I didn't succeed with this book in previous attempts is the horribly cliched opening. Spoiler: it got better.

Once I'd pushed through the opening and realised I didn't need to consult the extensive glossary at the back of the edition I read to understand what was going on this book was a rare thing. It's original! The world and the magic are very cool and very different. The play show more on morality that went throughout was really well-done, too, I loved seeing the shades of grey through Rossamund's eyes.

While nothing seemed to *happen* in this book I don't think it lacked for it. Some books need a plot and double-crosses and a driving pace to keep everything hanging together, this book didn't. It was a beautifully easy to read, fascinating introduction to the world, the magic and the concepts Cornish is playing with in this series.

I'm fascinated as to where he's going with it and expect to be thoroughly rewarded with an excellent opening up of the sort of dark can of worms that only really good fantasy can pull off. show less

Rossamünd, an orphan boy with an unfortunate name, has lived in Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls practically all his life. In this orphanage-of-sorts, the kids are trained for a useful career – usually on the sea. Rossamünd, however, has been passed over time and again until finally, he is selected, not for a career on the sea, but as a lamplighter. Foundling is the story of his journey from the orphanage to the place where he will train to be a lamplighter, and oh what a journey it is.

He gets into all kinds of trouble, and meets the most amazing people on this journey – plus, he not only gets to see and speak with monsters, but he also gets to travel with some people who kill monsters for a show more living.

I was sent an ARC of the second book in the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy, so had to go out and get my hands on Founding, the first book, before reading the second. I had no idea what to expect, so was pleasantly surprised when I found myself being sucked into the book right from the start.

The story was exciting, but it was the characters that did it for me (as per normal). They were all so vibrant and real – there were only a couple bit characters that seemed like they could have been developed more; with everyone else it was a joy to read about them and get to know about them, even if they weren’t the nicest of people. The transformation of Rossamünd through the book was fabulous to watch too – he went from a passive kid to someone who had a backbone and wasn’t going to let people push him around any longer.

I am most certainly looking forward to reading the second in the trilogy; I think I’ll be picking that up in a couple of weeks or so. I have a couple of suspicions about things that are going to be revealed about Rossamünd’s character, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing if I’m right or if the author will throw some curveballs my way. show less

Amazing, amazing use of language. The author has developed his own words for this novel's world (there's a 100 page dictionary in the appendices). Not only that, but he has inventively used English in a way that is very distinctive. The characters have a consistency about the way they talk that is both familiar and yet evocative of another time. And he uses some huge and less usual English words (for example, sussurus, stentorian, that, out of context, I would struggle to give you a definition for).
The story is good too. Very dark in places, but there is no overwhelming feeling of doom and darkness over the entire course of the novel. There are some gruesome deaths. There are also some beautiful lighter moments, a certain morality and a show more sense of hope.
Quite an amazing novel for something that is classified in our library as "junior fiction", not "young adult". I'd suggest the complexity and depth of language would suit an audience of high school students rather than any those any younger.
The author's illustrations are great. show less