Philip Womack

While not without its moments, this tale of a boy who becomes caught up in a magical conflict ultimately fails to deliver. The characterizations are undeveloped, and often make little sense. For example, although the main protagonist is only twelve years old, the author tries to give him involved in a romantic/sexual relationship. It never happens, but seriously, he's twelve. Many details are never adequately explained, for my taste, anyway. And the deus ex machina conclusion at the end was especially weak. There seemed to be the set up for a sequel that never happened. Nor should it.… (mehr)

Edward Pollock is just a regular boy in an English boarding school until he stumbles upon an old book, the Other Book, which can bridge the gap to the Other World, a world filled with monsters and evil. Pollock must protect the book from those who wish to use the book for ill, to merge the Other World with the real one, and bring doom upon humanity.

I wasn't a fan of this one, I'm afraid. The writing is incredibly stiff and hurried, there isn't a lot of detail and the book moves from one scene to the next without ever stopping to consider the implications of what's happening. The characters all behave completely oddly, mostly to move the plot along, and none of it ever felt believable. It almost felt like reading a storyboard for a movie or something. "This happened, and then this happened, and suddenly this is happening." It just never succeeded at drawing me into the story, which made the whole book fall flat for me. Not recommended!… (mehr)

The Liberators is a children’s adventure story very much in the best tradition, combining genuine excitement and danger with likeable characters and a taste of older traditions – in this case Greek myth. It reminded me Alan Garner, and even more of John Masefield’s The Box of Delights, not just because the story begins with the hero travelling by train to relatives for the Christmas holidays, but because of the mixture of the everyday and the supernatural, and the sense of ‘otherness’ intruding into and taking over the lives of ordinary people.

Ivo’s encounter on the Underground is rather more gruesome than anything Kay has to deal with. He and his friends are up against a power from the distant past – havoc, as embodied by the acolytes of Bacchus.

Womack uses his story to explore the idea of total freedom – what does it mean to have no restraint at all, and is that what freedom actually means? He shows Dionysus and Apollo as opposites, with Apollo’s reason balancing Dionysus’ wildness. When the three children are exposed to a taste of the bacchanalian frenzy one of them finds it intoxicating and tempting and his reaction makes the reader ask if our self-control is not, after all, a restriction of nature?

The scenes of bacchanal are frightening and uncontrolled, and the reader learns, along with the children, that total freedom from civilised constraint is not a desirable state, and this gives then strength as they fight to prevent the Liberators from ‘releasing’ all of humankind from civilisation. This is an exciting and thoughtful book for younger teens that tackles some complex ideas and expects an intelligent response from the reader. You could almost call it The Secret History for 11 year olds…

[I was inescapably reminded of the rejoycing of Bacchus and Silenus in C S Lewis' Princes Caspian. Surely Lewis would not be advocating total uncontrol and the madness the follows it? But in Narnia the wildness is surrounded by the presence of Aslan, as Susan and Lucy say: "'I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan.' 'I should think not,' said Lucy"]… (mehr)