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Monster Blood Tattoo Book 1
by D M. Cornish
Book Reviewed by: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.
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
(521 words)
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
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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If you liked Foundling, try these:
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by Frank Beddor
Published 2007
An intruiging re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, in which Wonderland exists, and Alyss is a princess escaping a bloody coup to hide in Victorian London. Lost and alone, she tells an aspiring author the surreal story; but he believes it to be mere fantasy. Now, years later, she is found by a loyal bodyguard, and together they fight to regain her...
Lloyd Alexander, Newbery-winning author of The Chronicles of Prydain
..A remarkable new world, complete in every detail, totally convincing.
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