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Dec. 15th, 2008 11:05 amI fell in love with Margaret Mahy when I read The Changeover, and made an instant vow to go forth and read as many other books by her as I could conceivably acquire.
The first step in that process was picking up Maddigan's Fantasia, a futuristic fantasy quest involving time travel, dystopic destroyed future landscapes, witches, apparitions, illusions, communing with The Trees, child slavery, people turning into scaly monsters, flying gangs, and wacky circus hijinks! This seems like a lot for one book - and while I liked it on the whole, it is occasionally a bit over-stuffed with Stuff, which is why it made so much sense to me when I found out after reading it that it was actually a tie-in novel for a TV miniseries called Maddigan's Quest that aired in New Zealand. And it worked as a tie-in book, because I really want to go see the miniseries now! The book was good in and of itself, but there were a lot of chapters in it that felt very episodic and not quite tied in to the larger narrative but would clearly make for awesome hour-long episodes full of exciting visuals and circus stunts.
I do think that the fact that the book was so packed full of events and action meant that there wasn't as much chance to get quite as much of the mix of realistically ordinary emotion/reaction in with the fantasy that I loved so much in The Changeover. I also wanted to see a lot more fleshed out about the villain and the time-traveling brothers who provide so much of the plot; Timon, especially, I never really felt like I got a handle on until the end. On the other hand, I did like all of the characters - and I loved Boomer, the practical and machine-loving little-brother figure (um, not that anyone is surprised by this) - and I very much liked what we did get of the complicated dynamics of the circus group, who all felt like very real, non-cliche, and believably flawed people. And the world was very interesting, in a way that was more based off What Would Be Cool than a completely consistent logic, but it was pretty cool so I will not complain about that so much. So: on the whole, a lot of fun and in no way a deterrent to my quest to Read Everything Margaret Mahy Ever Wrote.
(And the first episode of the TV show is available to watch streaming online through the site even if you do not live in New Zealand! I would recommend it except for the frustration that there is only one. :O)
The first step in that process was picking up Maddigan's Fantasia, a futuristic fantasy quest involving time travel, dystopic destroyed future landscapes, witches, apparitions, illusions, communing with The Trees, child slavery, people turning into scaly monsters, flying gangs, and wacky circus hijinks! This seems like a lot for one book - and while I liked it on the whole, it is occasionally a bit over-stuffed with Stuff, which is why it made so much sense to me when I found out after reading it that it was actually a tie-in novel for a TV miniseries called Maddigan's Quest that aired in New Zealand. And it worked as a tie-in book, because I really want to go see the miniseries now! The book was good in and of itself, but there were a lot of chapters in it that felt very episodic and not quite tied in to the larger narrative but would clearly make for awesome hour-long episodes full of exciting visuals and circus stunts.
I do think that the fact that the book was so packed full of events and action meant that there wasn't as much chance to get quite as much of the mix of realistically ordinary emotion/reaction in with the fantasy that I loved so much in The Changeover. I also wanted to see a lot more fleshed out about the villain and the time-traveling brothers who provide so much of the plot; Timon, especially, I never really felt like I got a handle on until the end. On the other hand, I did like all of the characters - and I loved Boomer, the practical and machine-loving little-brother figure (um, not that anyone is surprised by this) - and I very much liked what we did get of the complicated dynamics of the circus group, who all felt like very real, non-cliche, and believably flawed people. And the world was very interesting, in a way that was more based off What Would Be Cool than a completely consistent logic, but it was pretty cool so I will not complain about that so much. So: on the whole, a lot of fun and in no way a deterrent to my quest to Read Everything Margaret Mahy Ever Wrote.
(And the first episode of the TV show is available to watch streaming online through the site even if you do not live in New Zealand! I would recommend it except for the frustration that there is only one. :O)
