Product Description

In the second novel in the Rook Barkwater sequence, the young knight librarian attempts to stop the dark might of the Most High Academe. High in the crumbling Palace of Statues, oily Vox Verlix is brewing a terrible plot to take over power in Edgeworld once again. Can Rook foil Vox's plan and save the lives of his librarian colleagues?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39762 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-27
• Released on: 2005-09-27
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780385750806
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
Praise for The Edge Chonicles:
“For children who’ve read the Harry Potter books and want another world to explore.” -- Mail on Sunday

“Stunningly original.” -- Sunday Times

“More than a read: it kidnaps and transports the reader.” -- The School Librarian


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author
Paul Stewart is the author of a number of previous titles for children.

Chris Riddell is an accomplished graphic artist who has illustrated many acclaimed books for children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
·chapter one·

Dawn Patrol

It was cold in the great chamber; bitter cold. Above, through the frost-edged panes of the glass dome overhead, the stars glittered like phraxdust in the black sky. Below, at the large ring-shaped ironwood table, a hulking figure was hunched over a sheaf of sky charts, a carved tankard in front of him, and an upturned telescope by the foot of his chair. Loud snores echoed through the chamber as the figure's head slumped slowly forwards, a red gobbet of spittle bubbling on his lips.

The sky charts rustled like dead leaves as they were caught by an icy draught whistling through the chamber. The academic shivered in his sleep and the light clink of a phraxdust medallion tapping the heavy chain of office round his neck mingled with his snores.

He slumped further forward, cheeks wobbling and neck creasing into plump, grublike layers of fat. The dangling phraxdust medallion knocked against the rim of the all but empty tankard. The snores were deep and rumbling now and, as the sleeper's jowly face hovered over the table, the medallion hung down inside the tankard.

All at once, with a volcanic snore, the sagging figure fell completely forwards. He slammed his forehead on the edge of the table with a thud - and sat bolt upright. In front of him, there was a hiss, a crackle, a whiff of toasted wood-almonds - and the tankard abruptly exploded.

The academic was thrown back from his chair. He landed heavily on the other side of the chamber, twisting a leg and knocking his head sharply against the tiled floor.

From high above, like a faulty echo, there came an answering sound of breaking glass and an ear-splitting crash, as something hard and heavy burst through the dome and landed in the middle of the ironwood table, splitting it in two.

The academic coughed throatily as he heaved himself painfully to his feet. The air was thick with dust and smoke. His head throbbed, his ears were ringing, and wherever he looked, the after-image of the explosion flashed before him; now pink, now green. He coughed again and again, great convulsions racking his body.

At last the coughing subsided, and he fumbled for a spidersilk kerchief and wiped his streaming eyes. Above his head, he saw that several of the glass panels had shattered in the blast. At his feet, the jagged fragments glinted in the moonlight. He frowned as his gaze fell on the object nestling amongst the shards of glass and splinters of wood. It was a stone head dislodged from one of the statues on the roof, the thick frost coating its surface already melting and dripping down onto the floor.

Who is it this time? the academic wondered. Which venerable figure of rank has taken a tumble tonight?

He crouched down, seized the slippery head with both hands, rolled it over - and gasped with sudden foreboding. It was his own face staring back at him.

Although it was close to midnight, with the full moon dull and greasy yellow behind the thickening mist, the air - even high up at the top of the Tower of Night - was still clammy and warm. The Most High Guardian, Orbix Xaxis, emerged onto the main upper gantry, looked round uneasily, and began at once to fiddle urgently with the metal muzzle that covered his mouth and nose.

With the vents closed by spidersilk gauze, Orbix's face sweated beneath the mask and his voice took on a muffled and rasping tone - but at least it protected him from the vile contagion of the night. The High Guardian clicked the muzzle-guard securely into place. When the great purifying storm finally arrived, he thought with quiet satisfaction, the air would be fit to breathe again, but until that glorious day . . .

'The chosen ones await your bidding, master,' came a gruff voice behind him.

Orbix turned. The cage-master, Mollus Leddix, stood before him. Behind him, flanked by hulking flathead Guardians, were two young librarians, their faces white and drawn. One, a shock of ginger hair matted by a gash in his eyebrow, tried to stand up straight, but the muscles in his jaw betrayed his fear. His companion, smaller and slightly hunched, stared with pale blue eyes at his feet. Their arms were tied behind their backs.

Orbix thrust his muzzle into the smaller one's face, and took a long, deep sniff. A tear squeezed out from the librarian's eyelashes and slid down his cheek.

'Very good,' said Orbix at last. 'Sweet. Tender . . . Caught them in the sewers, did you?'

'One of them, master,' Leddix nodded. 'The other was shot down over Undertown.'

Orbix Xaxis tutted. 'You librarians,' he said softly. 'Will you never learn that it is we, the Guardians of Night, who are the masters?' He nodded to the flatheads. 'Put them in the cage,' he growled. 'And remove their gags. I want to hear them sing.'

The flatheads tore the knotted rope from the prisoners' mouths and bundled them to the end of the jutting gantry, where a heavy cage hung down from an overhead pulley. One of the Guardians opened the barred door. Another shoved the prisoners inside. The ginger-haired librarian stood stock-still, his head held high. Beside him, his companion followed his example.

Orbix snorted. They were all the same, these young librarians. Trying so hard to be brave, to hide their fear - he had yet to meet a single one prepared to plead for his life. A cold fury gripped him. They would be singing soon enough.

'Lower the cage,' he barked.

Leddix gave a signal, and a Guardian stepped forward, released the locking-bolt on the crank-wheel, and began turning. With a lurch, the cage began its long descent. Orbix Xaxis raised his arms and lifted his head. The moonlight glinted on his mask and tinted glasses.

'Thus perish all those who pollute the Great Sky with blasphemous flight!' his rasping voice rang out. 'For we, the Guardians, shall purify the Sky, ready for that Great Night. Hail, the Great Storm!'

The gantry filled with voices raised in salute. 'Hail, the Great Storm! Hail, the Great Storm!'

Far below them now, the cage continued down. Past the dark angular Tower of Night it went; past the surface of the crumbling Sanctaphrax rock and the vast network of scaffolding erected to support it, and on down into Screetown.

Inside the cage, the two librarians struggled to keep their balance as they stared out.

'Try not to look down,' said the ginger-haired one.

'I . . . I can't,' said his companion. 'I saw something down there in the darkness . . . Waiting . . .'

Created when massive chunks of stone had broken off from the crumbling Sanctaphrax rock, fallen and crushed the area of Undertown directly beneath, Screetown was a rubble-strewn wilderness. Every building had been demolished, every street destroyed, while the weight of the immense boulders crashing down was so great that the shock waves had opened up gaping canyons in the ground.

It was into the deepest of these canyons that the librarians were being lowered. All at once, the cage jerked to a standstill. The two young librarians fell against the bars of the cage as, far above their heads, the voice of the High Guardian rang out.

'Come, Demons of the Deep!' he cried. 'And rid the Sky of its polluters!' He turned to Leddix. 'Release them,' he hissed.


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

terrific edge of the seat young adult fantasy thriller
Relatively young Librarian Knight Rook Barkwater flying the Stormhornet completes his aerial patrol of the Edge that overlooks the Edgewater River. He begins to head back to the library to report the usual strange lights in the sky and mutants in Screetown, but observes columns of Shrykes on Great Mire Road as if the aviary creatures were preparing for war. However before he attains the haven of the Library, he hears a roaring noise and suddenly Stormhornet spins out of control. He crashes in Screetown where his escape fails and he becomes a prisoner.

He is taken to the sunken Palace of the Statues, home or prison depending on one's view of the fallen tyrant Vox Verlix. Though exiled and not remotely like the greatest librarian of all times, Vox remains a force to be reckoned with albeit no one believes that. He warns his former compatriots that a storm is coming, but will they listen to an insane fallen one? Though Rook believes him having observed the lucid moments of his "host", what can he do even if he manages to escape being somewhat a novice.

Fans of Potter will enjoy the Edge Chronicles; especially the books containing the adventures of Rook (see LAST OF THE SKYPIRATES). Rook is a terrific lead character who holds the tale in focus, but Vox is the fascinating one as the audience will wonder whether he warns out of duty or spite. Though this tale can stand alone, most fans will find it even better by reading at least beforehand LAST OF THE SKYPIRATES to gain a better understanding of motives and how far Rook has come. Still this is a fine edge of the seat young adult fantasy thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Should've been named "Rook"
In the darkest and most complex Edge Chronicle ever, Vox Verlix plots away in his crumbling tower, seeing all, watching all, and waiting for his chance for revenge against those that betrayed him. Possessor of the title of Most High Academe by methods not quite orthodox, Vox is now a prisoner of his own machinations, his greatest triumphs usurped by those he once trusted.

The hero of this book is again young Rook, the librarian-knight from book five. Captured after losing his precious Stormhornet sky-craft while on patrol, he is sold into slavery and ends up in Vox's palace, as an assistant to Hestera Spikesap, an exciting new character with a lot going on in her kitchen and heart. He meets the other minions of Vox - Speegspeel the goblin servant, Amberfuce the ghost-waif, and Flambusia, Amberfuce's nurse, and manages to get himself in the middle of most of the action which springs up in every chapter.

Judging from the signs in the sky, a huge storm is brewing, which the Guardians of the Night believe will cure the stone sickness which has devastated New Sanctaphrax. The natives are restless also, and it doesn't take much prompting to set Shrikes and Goblins against each other in a huge battle in the sewers beneath Undertown.

There's more violence than usual in this one, and several mentions of the smell of unwashed bodies of various species. It's also not as well thought out as the others, as major plot points happen too often by either chance or carelessness. There are stories running concurrently that are sometimes hard to tie together, and lots of loose ends. There's even romance in the air along with the usual imaginative cast of creatures, but as usual, the illustrations truly bring the book to life.

Not the best in the series, but packed with action and well worth reading.



Amanda Richards, October 9, 2005

Unfinished Word
The Edge Chronicles Book #6, Vox, was packed with action. There is a ton of fighting using bow-and-arrows, talons, and knives. On page 359 in the hardcover edition, there is part of a word missing. The sentence is, "Slashtalon leaped forwards, all four sets of talo slashing at once." There is the word talo instead of talons. Other than that, the book is excellent.